The Israeli Left has been shrinking for some time.
The Israeli Labor Party, which used to run the country, has 4 Knesset
members. This is not a new situation. This hilarious Latma video
mocking the Labor Party for having so few parliamentarians that they can
all fit in a taxi dates back to 2011.
I’ve written a good deal about the collapse of the Israeli Left which is attributable to a number of factors including
The disastrous “peace process” with Islamic terrorists resulting in a ‘Palestinian’ terror entity
The success of the Israeli economy under privatization
Immigration. Unlike immigration in the U.S., immigration from the
Middle East and Russia to Israel has led to a more conservative
electorate.
The survey found that the rightward ratchet of Israeli
politics across decades of Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism has
lurched ahead since Oct. 7. Based on political self-identification, the
right has grown by 5 percentage points to include 36 percent of Jewish
Israelis, or 60 percent when the poll factors in the moderate and hard
right. The left has shrunk by 3 percentage points to just 8 percent of
the public, or 13 percent factoring in the moderate and hard left. And
the center has held steady at about a quarter of the political spectrum.
How did that play out in some of the more liberal communities near Gaza targeted on Oct 7?
Debbie Sharon, 60, a criminal defense attorney from
Yated, a town in southern Israel, counts herself among the newly minted
right-wingers. She recalled that prior to Oct. 7, she subscribed to the
then-prevailing conception that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005
and subsequent economic support for the strip encouraged quiet and might
one day lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
“People on the right warned us that the Palestinians don’t think the
way we think: They don’t care about peace for their children. They only
care about eliminating us,” Sharon said. “But we didn’t believe them. We
said, ‘They’re all mad. They’re all right-wing extremists.'”
Earlier this year, Sharon volunteered for Tzav 9, a grassroots
movement that sprang up to protest Israel’s provision of humanitarian
aid to Gaza during the war. She eventually left the group—which has
recently been linked to violence and sanctioned by the Biden
administration—saying it had become too divisive. But she stood by her
opposition to the aid.
“They can have aid in Gaza when they give us back our hostages.
That’s how I feel,” she said. “I guess that makes me a right-wing
extremist.”
All in all this sounds like it should be great news, but Israel’s
parliamentary system which lacks regional representation ensures that
there are a whole range of political parties, many representing narrow
and very corruptible interests, which can be used to form coalitions.
The public Left isn’t much of an electoral force, but in the past
15-20 years it mainly operates through fake ‘centrist’ and ‘apolitical’
parties like Yesh Atid or various others fronted by the latest retired
general. When these parties get enough votes, they can form a leftist
coalition government that pretends it’s centrist.
Additionally, there are a variety of narrow-identity politics parties
that are simply for sale. These are particularly useful for breaking
off voters who might otherwise vote for conservative parties.
And then there are the Arab Islamic parties.
Finally, the Supreme Court maintains total unilateral absolute power,
and efforts to reduce its power fell apart due to massive national
protests and then the attacks of Oct 7. The Supreme Court’s calculated
decision on a draft for Orthodox students is meant to make the Netanyahu
coalition fall apart and be replaced by the Left.
So what should be good news on paper is unfortunately a long way from offering that much in reality.
The Israeli Jewish public is generally conservative, but the system still belongs to the Left.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is
an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and
Islamic terrorism.
Trump appointee takes two business days to apply ruling ending so-called Chevron deference to block Department of Education regulation redefining "sex." Title IX administrator group warns members to be ready for immediate reversal.
The Commerce Department was the
first victim of the Supreme Court's decision Friday banning the
administrative state from defining its own authority, ending four
decades of so-called Chevron deference that first inoculated the Environmental Protection Agency against judges second-guessing its interpretation of ambiguous laws.
It took two business days for another victim to emerge in a case far more relevant to ordinary Americans than Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which prohibits Commerce from charging fishing vessels for the federal monitors the agency requires on their boats.
U.S. District Judge John Broomes on Tuesday cited the oven-fresh SCOTUS precedent in approving the third preliminary injunction
– and the most far-reaching yet – against the Biden administration's
Title IX regulation that adds gender identity to the sex-discrimination
law enforced by the Education Department.
The quickness of the precedent's application to ongoing litigation in
lower courts shows the mortal peril that federal agencies face from
judges scrutinizing how far they've gone to fill in the alleged gaps
left by Congress for the first time since the Reagan administration.
The high court also threw into disarray administrative law
proceedings by agencies' in-house judges, who rarely rule against their
employers, through its new ruling in Jarkesy v. SEC requires agencies to seek civil penalties against defendants in a real court of law before a jury.
That means the feds cannot enforce the regulation, including access
to restrooms, locker rooms and athletic competition by gender identity
and prohibitions on misgendering, on K-12 school districts in which Moms
for Liberty members have minor children, schools attended by FAU
members and colleges with Young Americans for Freedom chapters.
YAF told Just the News it has "activists" on 2,000 college campuses, and Moms for Liberty said it has 130,000 members in 300 chapters.
Kansas GOP Attorney General Kris Kobach claimed Wednesday the
injunction will stop the regulation "in all 50 states," and he called
the victory "the biggest one" he's ever achieved in court.
Kobach cited Broomes' speculation that the regulation permits "an
industrious older teenage boy" to fake an identity as a girl "so that he
can observe his female peers disrobe and shower."
Broomes ordered the associational plaintiffs to identify by July 15
the schools in which their members or their minor children attend so the
feds know which cannot be sanctioned for violating the regulation.
The feds must use legal discovery if they demand the "names of
members or their children," subject to Broomes' review and possible
protective orders.
Courts "may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply
because a statute is ambiguous" under the Administrative Procedure Act,
but must use their "independent judgment" to determine whether "an
agency has acted within its statutory authority," the President Trump
appointee wrote Tuesday, citing Loper Bright.
Broomes returned to the precedent several pages later, saying even if
"sex" was ambiguous he's no longer bound to accept the agency's
interpretation. "The DoE simply lacks authority to expand sex to mean
gender identity," which would render Title IX's written exceptions
"meaningless" and usurp the sole authority of Congress to decide "major
questions."
Judges answering to three federal appeals courts – the 5th, 6th and
now 10th circuits – have now concluded the "unambiguous plain language
of the statutory provisions and the legislative history" mean that "sex"
in Title IX can only mean "the traditional concept of biological sex in
which there are only two sexes, male and female," as Broomes put it.
The feds didn't deny this but rather argued that "this makes no
difference because discrimination on the basis of gender identity is discrimination on the basis of biological sex," relying on the Supreme Court's Bostock
ruling but, he said, ignoring its limitation to employment law and its
intentional silence on "bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the
kind."
Title IX, unlike Title VII, has "carve outs which explicitly allow
discrimination based on (biological) sex," Broomes wrote, picking apart
the feds' attempt to distinguish "living facilities" – where the
regulation says schools can maintain sex segregation – from bathrooms
and locker rooms, where they cannot.
"Given Congress’ stated concern about privacy for students, it would
be counterintuitive if that privacy only extended to students who lived
in student housing" but not the bathrooms and locker rooms "used for
activities of daily living such as bathing and dressing," he said.
The Association of Title IX Administrators told its 9,000 active members a week before Loper Bright's
ruling how to handle the two injunctions covering 10 states that had
been handed down by judges hearing Title IX regulation challenges but
didn't foresee an injunction like Broomes'.
More than half of the states could end up covered by injunctions
based on the plaintiffs in five lawsuits, said Brett Sokolow, ATIXA's
founding executive director and now chairmen of its advisory board. He
faulted the judges for not taking "a restrained approach."
The group believes that "sexual orientation and gender identity have
long been protected by Title IX" before the Biden administration's
revision, which was "not so much an expansion of Title IX as a
clarification of its scope," he wrote, the opposite conclusion as three
courts now.
Sokolow warned members their institutions "may need to comply" with
the regulation "at a moment's notice" if a court lifts an injunction or
lets it expire, so they should "give some careful thought to policy
revision/preparation and training" and "have something on the shelf."
FDD’s Richard Goldberg: History would repeat itself the minute the IDF abandons the Gaza-Sinai border, with Hamas rebuilding its smuggling operations.
A Hamas security officer opens a gate to the
Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza near Rafah, July, 1, 2007.
Photo by Ahmad Khateib/Flash90.
The Israel Defense Forces is preparing to
shift in the coming weeks from high-intensity warfare to targeted
operations the Gaza Strip, a transition it calls moving from Stage B to
C. The Israeli military plans, however, on continuing to hold the
8.7-mile (14-kilometer) Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the Gaza-Egypt border.
This continued Israeli control of the
border will be critical in preventing the resurgence of Hamas’s
smuggling operation and will help dampen the Iran-backed terror army’s
hopes to rebuild itself.
Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the
Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS,
“History would repeat itself the minute the IDF abandons the Philadelphi Corridor,
with Hamas rebuilding its smuggling operations. Egypt was obviously
complicit in the Hamas tunneling operation and cannot be trusted with
the border.
“The U.N. which is pro-Hamas, is not an
option. That leaves the IDF to continue destroying all existing tunnel
infrastructure and interdict future tunneling and other smuggling
attempts.”
The Philadelphi Corridor,
which Israel seized as part of its Rafah offensive, has historically
been the route for Hamas to smuggle weapons and contraband from Egypt’s
Sinai Peninsula. By maintaining a presence in this corridor, the IDF
aims to ensure that Hamas is unable to rebuild its terror capabilities.
The Philadelphi Corridor has been a focal
point for years, turning into a smuggling zone even before Israel’s
disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and evolving into a monstrous network
of tunnels in the years that followed.
The network of tunnels facilitated the
flow of arms, explosives and other contraband, bolstering Hamas’s
massive military infrastructure throughout Gaza.
The tunnels sneaking under the Philadelphi
Corridor also enabled the transfer of luxury goods, cigarettes and
other materials for the Gazan black market, all of which was taxed by
Hamas, feeding its war chest.
Chronic corruption
Many observers have pointed to chronic
corruption at the Rafah crossing, where bribes were allegedly paid to
Egyptian security officials to facilitate smuggling. Additionally,
high-level Egyptian figures are allegedly involved in these operations,
organizing the passage of Gaza residents into Egypt for a fee. It is
possible that this is why Egypt also failed to dismantle the dozens of
tunnels that the IDF is now finding and destroying.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi,
who visited the Rafah area on Tuesday, said that the military killed
more than 900 terrorists, including commanders, during the Rafah operation.
“The reason we are working here week after
week is now focused on the destruction of the terrorist infrastructure
and the destruction of the underground infrastructure, which takes
time,” Halevi continued. “Therefore, this is a long campaign, because we
do not want to leave Rafah with the terrorist infrastructure intact.
There are those we eliminated underground, and some that tried to emerge
above ground, and we eliminated them.”
He added, “This ongoing effort of ours,
this pursuit, is very, very important. They should feel exhausted, while
we feel energized and determined. When we move to the next phase, we
will adapt appropriate measures for that phase, bring new tactics,
provide logistical support in a different way that fits that phase, and
all these things ultimately are focused by our determination,
perseverance and patience, wearing down the other side and accomplishing
our missions. A lot of willpower, a lot of patience and perseverance,
and the results will speak for themselves going forward.”
As long as the IDF maintains control of
the Gaza-Egypt border, Hamas’s efforts to rebuild its terror army will
be significantly hindered.
Securing the Philadelphi Corridor ensures
that Hamas remains isolated from its external sources of weapons and
materials, which are crucial for its military operations. It will also
harm Hamas’s domestic arms production ambitions, since homemade
production sites also rely on material entering the Strip.
In that sense, the Philadelphi Corridor
can be compared the Israel’s strategic control of the Jordan Valley,
which enables it to intercept and disrupt many Iranian arms smuggling
efforts via Jordan into Judea and Samaria (although some smuggling runs
have gotten through).
The IDF is also continually expanding a
“sterile zone” around the Corridor, as part of its ongoing
counter-tunnel and terror infrastructure destruction operations,
Israel’s Channel 12 reported on June 30.
The failure of Egypt over the years to put
a stop to the tunnels means Israel must take matters into its own
hands. The IDF’s continued presence in the Philadelphi Corridor ensures
that Israel retains control over a critical aspect of its national
security, without relying on external actors.
Yakkov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He is
the in-house analyst at the Miryam Institute; a research associate at
the Alma Research and Education Center; and a research associate at the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He is a
frequent guest commentator on international television news networks,
including Sky News and i24 News. Lappin is the author of Virtual Caliphate: Exposing the Islamist State on the Internet. Follow him at: www.patreon.com/yaakovlappin.
[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]
Until a week ago, President Joe Biden seemingly had the
age issue under control. Yes, he had senior moments, some of which were
quite severe, such as the episode at the White House Juneteenth concert
in which he weirdly froze for two minutes, silent, eyes fixed straight
ahead, body absolutely motionless. But commentary on such moments was
mostly confined to a few news outlets; much of the White House press
corps seemed to accept the Biden press handlers’ explanation that the
stories were “cheap fakes” created by Republicans to hurt the president
politically. It’s hard to understand why any observant reporter would
accept such an explanation, but some did.
Everyone knew that polls showed large majorities of Americans,
including large majorities of Democrats, thought that the 81-year-old
Biden was not physically and mentally capable of serving as president of
the United States for another term, until he is 86 years old. Everyone
also knew that the public had fewer such concerns about 78-year-old
former President Donald Trump, Biden’s rival in the 2024 election.
Nevertheless, with a big assist from the press, the Biden campaign was
able to keep the age issue on the back burner.
And then Biden blew it all up. On May 15, the president posted a
video on X of himself taunting Trump about a debate. “Donald Trump lost
two debates to me in 2020,” Biden said in the video. “Since then, he
hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me
again. Well, make my day, pal.”
Biden’s moment of Dirty Harry bravado will go down as one of the most
spectacular self-owns in American political history. Biden mocked Trump
as a loser and a coward. He dared Trump to debate him. He was eager for
a showdown. Then Trump took him up on it, and the rest is history.
Biden’s bluff was called, in dramatic fashion.
Now, we are still in the early stage of repercussions from Biden’s
terrible, troubling performance in the debate. First there was
Democratic panic. Then there was retrenchment, as top Democrats settled
on a Joe-had-a-bad-night explanation. And now there are growing doubts
mixed with fatalism as the polls appear to show significant damage from
the debate, while Biden appears to be dug in and many Democrats despair
of the effort to remove an unwilling incumbent president from the party
ticket.
A word on the polls. After the Trump conviction, it was a good idea
to wait a couple of weeks for voters to digest the news and figure out
what they think. The same is true with this debate. It hasn’t even been a
week since the debate, and both sides have been obsessing over polls.
That itself tells us something about the depth of concern about the
damage done by Biden’s performance. The campaign released internal
polling that purported to show Biden was unhurt by the debate — which
was a pretty good sign that they believe Biden has been hurt by the
debate.
Now, Biden supporters are turning on each other and especially on the
president’s inner circle. Sometimes even on Biden himself. In a new
Politico account, insiders describe an isolated, cranky president who
relies on the advice of a very tight group of advisers and basically
ignores everyone else.
“Inside the White House, Biden’s growing limitations were becoming
apparent long before his meltdown in last week’s debate,” Politico
reported, “with the senior team’s management of the president growing
more strictly controlled as his term has gone on.” Aides worried about
presenting the president with negative information because “that will
set him off,” one senior administration official told Politico: “He is
not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very
difficult, and people are scared s–tless of him.” The official continued
to say that Biden “doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few
top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and
more isolated from their efforts to control it.”
That is not a good situation. Meanwhile, people are noticing that
Biden isn’t doing the normal sort of things a president would do to
clean up after a major gaffe or some other campaign mistake. He wants to
show that he is up to the job? How about a news conference, taking all
questions for at least an hour? He wants to show his vigor? How about a
few days of rigorous, all-out campaigning, traveling and speaking? Biden
isn’t doing it.
It’s a mess. And it all stems from Biden’s moment of hubris, when he
thought it was a great idea to goad Trump into a debate that would turn
into a disaster — for Biden.
"We launched more than 20 drones at many Israeli positions in the Galilee and more than 200 rockets of various types," a Hezbollah source said.
Fires sparked by rocket and drone attacks from
Lebanon in Israel's Golan Heights, July 4, 2024. Photo by Maor
Kinsbursky/Flash90.
Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon launched a
massive rocket and drone assault on northern Israel on Thursday
morning, scoring hits on structures in the Galilee and Golan Heights.
The initial phase of the combined attack
lasted around 40 minutes, after which renewed air-raid sirens sounded in
the Western Galilee, including in the cities of Acre and Nahariya.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that
it detected “suspicious aerial targets and launches that crossed [into
Israel] from Lebanon,” adding that the attack included some 200 rockets
and 20 suicide drones.
The army stated IDF air-defense personnel
and Israeli Air Force fighter jets managed to successfully intercept an
undisclosed number of projectiles.
In response to the attacks, artillery
forces and IAF jets attacked rocket and drone launching positions in
Southern Lebanon, the military said.
— ืฆืื ืืืื ื ืืืฉืจืื (@idfonline) July 4, 2024
There were no immediate reports of
casualties in Israel, though the rocket impacts caused damages and
sparked fires in the border area.
Medics were dispatched to areas where hits
were reported, the Magen David Adom emergency response organization
said in a post on X.
Moshe Davidovich, who heads the Mateh Asher Regional Council in the Western Galilee, told Israel’s Kan News broadcaster that one of the projectiles hit a kindergarten where a summer camp was taking place.
“It’s a miracle that there were no
casualties,” he said. “They all went to the protected space, but there
was damage to a kindergarten.”
The Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist proxy took responsibility for the aerial attacks in a statement cited by Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar daily.
An unnamed source in the terrorist group told Qatar’s Al Jazeera that the raid came in response to the IDF’s strike on Wednesday that killed top Hezbollah commander Muhammad Nimah Nasser.
“We launched more than 20 drones at many
Israeli positions in the Galilee and more than 200 rockets of various
types at Israeli positions in the Galilee and the Golan,” the channel
cited the terrorist as saying.
Nasser, who
commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz unit responsible for terrorist operations on
the border with Israel, was one of the group’s most senior leaders to be
killed since the start of the war in the north on Oct. 8.
According to Reuters, Nasser was of the same rank and importance as Sami Taleb Abdullah, who was killed by an Israeli Air Force strike last month.
Confirming the strike, the IDF
said, “Nasser entered his position in 2016 and led the rockets and
anti-tank missile attacks from southwestern Lebanon towards Israeli
civilians, communities and security forces.
“He was the counterpart of Sami Taleb
Abdullah, the commander of the Nasser Unit,” the military statement
continued. “Together, they served as two of the most significant
Hezbollah terrorists in Southern Lebanon.”
After Abdullah was killed in June, Hezbollah launched
one of its largest barrages of rockets and explosive drones towards the
Jewish state’s north, sparking large fires and lightly wounding two
civilians.
Hezbollah has attacked Israel’s north
nearly every day since Oct. 8, firing thousands of UAVs,
rockets and anti-tank missiles at Israeli towns, killing more than 20
people and causing widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli
civilians remain displaced due to the violence.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has
vowed to continue the attacks until a “complete and permanent
ceasefire” is reached in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant told troops in the south that the IDF is “striking
Hezbollah very hard every day, and we will also reach a state of full
readiness to take any action required in Lebanon or to reach an
arrangement from a position of strength.”
Tanks currently leaving the
Gaza Strip “can reach as far as the Litani,” he stated, in reference
to the Lebanese river some 10 miles north of the Israeli border.
“We prefer a deal, but if reality forces
us, we will know how to fight,” concluded Gallant, according to a
readout from his office.
Last month, the IDF formally “authorized
and validated” operational plans for a campaign aimed at pushing
Hezbollah north of the Litani, in accordance with 2006’s U.N. Security
Council Resolution 1701 that ended the Second Lebanon War.
Jerusalem is considering launching the operation as early as this month, Germany’s Bild reported on Tuesday, citing diplomatic sources.
McGhee’s suspension was for three days, no appeal was permitted, and he was kept out of a track meet.
(The Center Square) -
Request for a preliminary
injunction remains pending in the case of a North Carolina teen whose
academic record has been damaged for saying “illegal aliens” in a
classroom.
Christian McGhee, 16, was enrolled at Central Davidson High in
Lexington, asked a question of his teacher, and an assistant principal
equated the phrase to use of “the n-word.” Assistant Principal Eric
Anderson, in a conversation with the student’s mother, also described
McGhee’s teacher using the word “struggled” for the April 9 situation
and deemed it because of “being so young and female.”
The lawsuit says McGhee’s right to free speech, right to education
and right to due process have all been violated by the school district.
The Center Square's questions of the school district were acknowledged
and not answered.
McGhee’s suspension was for three days, no appeal was permitted, and
he was kept out of a track meet. His family finished the year
homeschooling with him.
According to McGhee’s lawyers, the sophomore raised his hand and
asked if the teacher’s reference to “aliens” referred to “space aliens,
or illegal aliens who need green cards?”
“Christian asked his question,” said Dean McGee, educational freedom
attorney at the Liberty Justice Center. “A boy in his class, of Hispanic
heritage, jokingly said ‘Hey, I’m going to kick your ...'” and used an
expletive.
McGee said class continued in usual fashion, that the two teens are friends and there was “no legitimate threat of a fight.”
The teacher, afterward, called in administrators regarding not the
use of the words, but the appearance of a threat. Anderson, McGee said,
talked to the teens.
“The kid said he was joking” about a fight, and that “he was not offended,” McGee said. “He said it was no big deal.”
In addition to telling the student he should have been offended,
McGee said Anderson gave the student a suspension in school of less than
one day and remarked about his Spanish grade being low despite his
heritage.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky might do well by studying the career of Carl Mannerheim and how he saved Finland from the Russian meatgrinder.
In early World War II, on November 30, 1939, a Soviet-Russian army
invaded Finland in a surprise massive attack. The Finns were eventually
outnumbered nearly 3 to 1. The population of the Soviet Union in 1940
was 50 times larger than that of Finland’s.
Finland’s former anti-Soviet ally, Nazi Germany, had sold it out
under the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which made Germany and
Russia de facto allies.
Finland’s other allies, particularly France and Britain, were slow in
giving aid. Both were unsure whether Finland had any chance of
survival. And they were further confused as to whether their archenemy
Germany was friendly or hostile to Finland.
Yet for nearly the next four months, the Finns fought ferociously.
They were led brilliantly by their iconic general and
commander-in-chief, Carl Mannerheim.
By March 1940, however, the brave but exhausted Finns were being
slowly ground down. Soon they were facing abject defeat—even after
courageously inflicting nearly 500,000 Russian causalities, ten times
the number of their own dead, wounded, and missing.
Finnish ferocity shocked Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Eventually,
he was willing to abandon his original objective of controlling, if not
annexing, Finland—in exchange for stealing 9 percent of Finland’s
territory.
Mannerheim reluctantly took the deal, stopped the war, and saved an autonomous Finland.
The fallout from the Winter War directly influenced World War II.
After the Soviet humiliation in Finland, Hitler mistakenly perceived
Stalin’s Red Army as a paper tiger. Accordingly, he would miscalculate
disastrously by invading the Soviet Union little more than a year later.
Later in World War II, the Finns eventually fought alongside Hitler
but were careful not to invade Russia or fight on Russian ground—just in
case Germany failed to win the war and they were left to again confront
an ascendant Red Army.
Yet after World War II, Stalin was still careful not to attack Finland, given the debacle of 1939-40.
In 1945, General Mannerheim was able to negotiate for a neutral,
independent Finland nation. Yet, given his huge, paranoid, and inimical
Soviet neighbor, he was careful not to openly side with the West.
Is any lesson from the Winter War applicable to the current Ukrainian conflict?
One, drawn-out heroic resistance to the Russian juggernaut wins a
nation global praise, but not necessarily enough weapons or manpower to
overcome the huge disparity of forces.
The European elation at Finland’s initial success mirrors the global admiration for the Ukrainian efforts to save Kyiv in 2022.
Two, the Russian Army has a long history of starting poorly in its
wars. But after months of mismanagement, incompetence, and massive
losses, its brutal command eventually readjusts. It then marshals the
vast manpower and territorial power of Russia to slowly grind down a
smaller enemy.
Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon, and Hitler all learned that fighting
in or near Russia starts out well but usually ends badly. The Ukrainian
winter ebullition of March 2022 has now descended into a bitter
Verdun-like 2024 summer stalemate.
Three, smaller border nations facing Russian aggression cannot count
on allied pledges of massive aid. In 1939, Finland was not helped much
by France, Britain, or America. And Ukraine is learning that current
foreign aid has a definite shelf life.
Four, both the media and Western democracies may lionize brave
countries fighting against Russian aggression, as seen in 1939 and again
in 2022, but they also sometimes fool themselves into thinking that
brilliant tactical successes will always translate into ultimate
strategic victories.
Five, smart leaders use their surprising initial successful
resistance to leverage a peace with Russia—despite the reality that
required concessions often result in the loss of some currently
Russian-occupied territory. Mannerheim lost 9% of Finland but saved his
nation.
In late March 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was
purported to be considering negotiations with a reeling
Russia—reportedly by conceding that it would be impossible to recover by
force the Donbass and Crimea lost to Russia in 2014.
Six, a fully armed Finland, under capable leadership, established
lasting deterrence, even against Stalin’s brutal Red Army. Ukraine’s
heroic defense has stunned Putin. Most of Russia’s population considers
the 2022 surprise invasion a terrible mistake—and apparently Ukraine too
tough a neighbor to repeat such a blunder.
Carl Mannerheim is still considered Finland’s greatest
leader—indominable in war and yet enough of a realist to end a war and
to survive next to an aggressive and dangerous Russia.
Zelensky might do well by studying the career of Mannerheim and how,
with dignity, he saved Finland from the Russian meatgrinder.
Since COVID came along, 1.9 million people died in excess of what would have been expected based on death rates in the preceding seven years.
The years of COVID deaths are finally becoming a memory, but many
years remain before we will fully understand what happened. As we
uncover more facts, learn from our mistakes, and, where we have to, hold
people accountable, we should resist the temptation to reinvent
history. COVID may have disproportionately targeted the elderly and the
infirm, and in our response, we should have recognized that before
locking down the whole country and pressuring the entire population to
accept experimental vaccines. Nonetheless, COVID was a deadly disease
that killed millions of people before their time.
The fact that COVID was a deadly and unique threat should not fade
away, but in the face of ongoing rhetoric to the contrary, it can be
forgotten. Serious commentators continue to claim that COVID was just
another flu. For example, on June 20, Tucker Carlson hosted Neil Oliver,
who has always come across as an extraordinarily perceptive
commentator, and during the conversation, Oliver pointed out that “the
flu disappeared when COVID came along,” and Carlson noted that he
“didn’t know anyone who ever got COVID. In subsequent interviews,
Carlson has repeated that observation.
Anecdotal evidence should not replace relevant data, but it can be
useful to corroborate data. And from that perspective, one must wonder
how Carlson’s entire network of family, friends, and friends of friends
all managed to escape COVID. I know of hundreds of people who caught
COVID and more than a few who died from the disease. I have spoken
at-length with at least a dozen practicing doctors who described COVID
as a unique new disease that targets whatever physical weakness a person
may have, a disease that, according to these doctors, burdened
America’s health care system nearly to the breaking point. It is simply
not possible that all of these doctors were in on some conspiracy to
reclassify the flu as COVID or to overstate the magnitude of the
pandemic.
It’s also self-contradictory to suggest that COVID was nothing more
than a severe flu variant, hyped by the government for ulterior motives.
Even if the second half of that statement is true, why, if one believes
our government is capable of such malevolence, would they declare a
pandemic based on a phony pathogen when it’s just as easy and far more
effective to release a genuine pathogen?
The data from the Center for Disease Control
is unambiguous. It tracks three potentially fatal respiratory
illnesses—pneumonia, influenza, and COVID. Their data from 2017 through
the first half of 2024 shows a surge in pneumonia deaths during the
COVID era. For the years 2017, 2018, and 2019, annual pneumonia deaths
were consistently around 175,000 per year in the U.S. Zero COVID deaths
were reported in those years. Then in 2020, pneumonia deaths rose
sharply to 357,000 and reached an even higher 408,000 in 2021. In 2022,
while down somewhat, pneumonia deaths were still higher than normal at
266,000, only leveling back down to a more typical 189,000 in 2023.
Meanwhile, COVID deaths hit 392,000 in 2020, 457,000 in 2021, and
244,000 in 2022, finally dropping to 75,000 in 2023. As COVID deaths
rose, pneumonia deaths also rose. What about influenza?
The first thing to observe with the numbers for influenza is how low
they are relative to pneumonia. They are also more variable. In 2017,
there were 8,000 flu deaths, jumping to 14,000 in 2018, followed by
7,000 in 2019, and 9,000 in 2020. Reported flu deaths did drop to only
1,000 in 2021 before rising back to a more typical 9,000 in 2022 and
6,000 in 2023. But these numbers for the flu are orders of magnitude
lower than those reported for pneumonia and COVID. So no, during the
COVID era, the flu didn’t “disappear.” More to the point, neither did
pneumonia.
The suspicion that reported deaths from the flu or from pneumonia may
have been diminished during the COVID pandemic in order to make it
appear that COVID deaths were more numerous than they actually were is
based on alleged errors in classification. But as it turns out, just
taking a look at the CDC’s weekly reporting on deaths from respiratory
illnesses proves that if they were reclassifying pneumonia deaths as
COVID deaths, they weren’t doing a very good job at it. Because the CDC
data shows pneumonia deaths more than doubling in 2020 and 2021 compared
to the three preceding years. Why would they leave so much fraud on the
table if, in fact, they were fraudulently reclassifying deaths to
inflate COVD numbers?
Another way to prove something horrible happened would be to look at
reports showing deaths from all causes in the U.S. over the past several
years. Needless to say, this is a harder data point to reclassify. We
don’t have to do an autopsy to see if you had the COVID virus in your
system. If you’re dead, you’re dead.
Using this logic, it is possible to compare the death rates since
COVID came along to the death rates prior to COVID. To do this, I took
CDC data on deaths from all causes for the years 2013 through 2019, then
adjusting for population growth, plotted them as repeating 12-month
cycles on a timeline that begins in January 2020 and runs through April
2024. On the chart, the grey line is based on how many people died in
the U.S. per week based on the population-adjusted average from 2013
through 2019. These seven years of pre-COVID data were remarkably
consistent, only deviating by a few percentage points. They go up in the
winter months when more people die of pneumonia and flu, and drop every
summer. Based on these extrapolations, the grey line therefore predicts
how many people would have died each week over the past four years if
COVID hadn’t come along.
The upper line on the chart shows actual deaths from all causes in
the U.S. by week since January 2020, when the lines were converged. The
spikes over these past 4.5 years are mostly mirroring the grey line—more
people die in winter—with exceptions in the fall of 2020 and 2021, when
COVID deaths surged anyway.
Underlying
this graphic image are numbers that belie any possibility that we lived
in normal times and COVID was a hoax. Sadly, and inexplicably, people
we need to rely on for news that isn’t mainstream misinformation or
fringe element lunacy are reinventing history. For this revisionism to
come from people like Neil Oliver and Tucker Carlson is disappointing.
During the four and a half years we’ve lived through since COVID came
along, 12.4 million Americans have died. If we had been living in normal
times, only 10.5 million Americans would have died. With a sample size
as huge as the U.S. population, this extrapolation can be made with a
high degree of accuracy, as is proven by the remarkable consistency in
death statistics during the years 2013 through 2019.
What these numbers tell us is that since COVID came along, 1.9
million people died in excess of what would have been expected based on
death rates in the preceding seven years. Of those, not quite 1.2
million deaths were attributable to COVID deaths, and another 500,000
can be attributed to elevated rates of death from pneumonia. The idea
that COVID wasn’t a devastating pandemic merely because a handful of
influential commentators say they don’t know anyone who died is
ridiculous, and it damages the credibility of people we need to be
credible.
The good news, however, is that COVID deaths and excess deaths both
appear to be slowly fading away. Excess deaths in the U.S. in April 2024
were only 4 percent over what we might have predicted for that month
based on pre-COVID death rates. That is the lowest it’s been since this
all began. Who knows, maybe if our population totals reflected the mass
migrations we’ve experienced since the beginning of the Biden
presidency, the adjustments for population growth would yield an
extrapolation with zero excess deaths. That is a possibility worth
savoring, and perhaps one of the few upsides of Biden’s open borders.
Pink Floyd member puts his virulent Jew-hate on full display.
Roger Waters, the Jew-hating Pink Floyd member detested
by his former bandmates, has once again put his virulent antisemitism
on full display. There is something to learn, even from someone like
him.
Roger Waters made some exceptionally-false commentson
the Piers Morgan program recently. Aside from talking to himself
openly, he claimed that no women were raped by Hamas members on 10/7. He
additionally stated that Morgan himself made up the kidnapping of the baby Kfir Bibas. Let’s stop for a moment and look at the evidence that counters his ramblings.
*There is a video
of a 10/7 Hamas terrorist saying how he and his father raped the same
woman before his father killed her. This is one of many videos of taped
confessions.
*The forensic evidence of those killed strongly supports evidence of rape of many of the women brutally killed on that black day.
*Eyewitnesses to rapes have described in detail what took place.
*There are Hamas videos of women who clearly have been sexually assaulted prior to their being hijacked to Gaza.
As to the Bibas family, Hamas has produced several videos of the mother Bibas with two of her children being herded off
by Hamas barbarians to Gaza. Hamas has never denied the presence of the
members of the Bibas family in Gaza captivity. Additional video shows the Bibas clan in Hamas captivity.
So, here is a famous rock
star well past his prime who has denied evidence that flies in the face
of his white-hot Jew hatred. To admit the rapes would give the Jews some
kind of credibility and right to sympathy. It would also make Hamas
look bad. I have never heard Waters criticize Hamas or any anti-Jewish
group or organization though he trotted out the standard, “Well, if
there were any war crimes that day, I decry them” shtick. Waters needs
reality to be bent to his lies on Piers Morgan’s show. Otherwise, his
whole antisemitic structure that he has been peddling for decades would
come crashing down on his head.
There was a time when truth
was the ultimate moderator of varying opinions in the public sphere.
Different people or groups could put forward opinions or ideas, but
ultimately the truth would vindicate one side and condemn the other. The
discovery of the concentration camps by advancing Allied armies ended
all debate as to whether the Nazis were systematically murdering Jews
and political enemies. Truth trumped apologists or people who claimed
that such activities were beyond the realm of human capability. Pursuing
the truth was the way that courts used to work, and there were some
rare professors who were actually interested in truth more than some
ideology that was impervious to any proof or facts. But as liberals
became leftists, the truth was generally no longer their friend. The
truth often stood diametrically opposed to their ideological goals and
opinions. So they had a choice: jettison truth where it interferes with
their world view or accept the truth as being determinant and modify
their worldviews accordingly. Ideology was more important than truth,
and that is how we find ourselves where we are today.
One can see that Roger
Waters is willing to be ridiculous, to contradict evidence related by a
terrified witness and even impugn his friends in Hamas as liars
regarding videotaped evidence in order to support his view that Jews and
Israelis are only evil and never worthy of any sympathy. But Waters is
not alone by any stretch, and Jew hatred is only one field where truth
is locked away for the greater goal of advancing positions based on lies
and distortions. On the subject of 10/7, I was waiting for some college
students to condemn Hamas’ actions against Israeli civilians that are
undeniable and then continue on with their Jew hatred. But they can’t
bring themselves—like Waters—to admit that Jews suffered anything
undeserved on 10/7. If there were deaths, Israel was at fault. Hamas
had, in their view, the unfortunate task of having to give the Jews what
they deserved as colonialists. In a previous age, observers on the side
would have been shocked by the protesters’ disingenuous statements and
chants. They would have been chided for ignoring facts, twisting words,
and looking only on one side of an issue in order to justify their
already predetermined position, which is to hate (white) Jews. The Me
Too crowd and the faux feminists could not even bring themselves to
condemn the mass attack against Israeli women, civilians and soldiers
alike. Their being Jewish meant that the sympathy normally granted to
any woman who claims sexual violence was not available to them. As I
wrote before, we live in an age in which one cannot condemn a riot or
violence in the streets until he confirms if the perpetrators are on his
ideological side or not.
But 10/7 and Israel are by
no means the only subjects where leftists ignore, invert, or destroy the
truth so as to keep fidelity with ideological purity. Those who support
the open borders over which millions have illegally entered the US
pooh-pooh the entry of fentanyl, the violence, the social displacement,
the higher rents, and the added billions required to deal with these
people. The ideology of an open border trumps all of those points. Ditto
for the climate scam. EV cars apparently are worse
for the environment than gas-powered cars, nothing extraordinary has
occurred over the past two decades with regards to “climate,” windmills
and sun-driven energy production are unreliable, not available 24/7, and
expensive compared to traditional sources of energy. Doctors are
willing to lie to claim that a guy who claims to be a woman does not
have physical advantages over real women in sports. They are willing to
perform operations on children that only damage the latter because the
truth would get in the way of their ideology that men and women are
interchangeable like parts on an airplane.
Roger Waters gladly came
off as a lying lunatic so as not to give up on his multi-decade career
as a Jew-hater. The same is true for leftists in every field of
endeavor, as “the truth” is a friend only when it supports their
positions and can be discarded when it gets in the way. In the end,
truth will win out. The time has come for the West to get rid of leftist
ideologues who are willfully destroying Western society.
While ignoring severe crises in other parts of the world
For months, Israel has
refuted libelous claims of famine in Gaza, as international
organizations -- especially the UN and the EU, the International Court
of Justice and mainstream media alongside NGOs such as Human Rights
Watch -- pushed the false, malicious narrative that Israel was causing
famine in Gaza and even using it as a "weapon of war." Israel might have
saved itself the effort. No one was listening.
In May, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the UN claimed, without
a shred of evidence, that there was a "full blown famine" in Gaza.
Now, it turns out, it was all a big lie. There was no famine,
there is no famine and Israel has not been using hunger as a "weapon of
war." In its report published on June 4, the UN's IPC [Integrated Food
Security Phase Classification] concluded that famine was no longer even
"plausible" and had no "supporting evidence."
By comparison, more than three million children in Sudan are
acutely malnourished, and a quarter of a million more are likely to die
in the coming months. By the UN's own admission, the war in Sudan is
"the war the world has either forgotten or ignored." The irony of that
statement has clearly been lost on the UN, which is probably the main
reason that Sudan – and other conflict spots – is ignored: the UN
focuses almost all its resources on Israel and Gaza.
The "made-up" famine is just the latest in a long row of
fabrications demonizing Israel's military operations in Gaza, which over
the last months have been exposed as lies yet have received zero
coverage in the media.
In early May, the UN effectively admitted that Hamas's casualty figures were untrustworthy...
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres led the incitement against Israel, as the UN almost always does.
Overall, 18 million people in Sudan face starvation.
For months, Israel has refuted libelous claims of famine in
Gaza, as international organizations -- especially the UN and the EU,
the International Court of Justice and mainstream media alongside NGOs
such as Human Rights Watch -- pushed the false, malicious narrative that
Israel was causing famine in Gaza and even using it as a "weapon of
war." Pictured: A line of trucks in Rafah, Egypt carrying aid prepares
to cross into the Gaza Strip on March 23, 2024. (Photo by Ali
Moustafa/Getty Images)
For months, Israel has refuted libelous claims of famine in Gaza, as
international organizations -- especially the UN and the EU, the
International Court of Justice and mainstream media alongside NGOs such
as Human Rights Watch -- pushed the false, malicious narrative that
Israel was causing famine in Gaza and even using it as a "weapon of
war." Israel might have saved itself the effort. No one was listening.
"Starvation," claimed
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell, "is used as a weapon of war.
Israel is provoking famine." His words came after a UN-affiliated body,
the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (ICP) published a special brief
in March claiming that hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza were
already experiencing famine and that by July the figure would rise to
more than a million.
"Famine is imminent" the IPC claimed. "1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity."
The International Court of Justice based its March 28 order to Israel
to increase the supply of humanitarian aid to Gaza on the IPC report.
Israel was therefore met by a deluge of outrage and hate from the world
community for supposedly causing this "famine."
In May, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the UN claimed, without a shred of evidence, that there was a "full blown famine" in Gaza.
Now, it turns out, it was all a big lie. There was no famine, there
is no famine and Israel has not been using hunger as a "weapon of war":
In its report published on June 4, the UN's IPC concluded that famine was no longer even "plausible" and had no "supporting evidence." The UN has also admitted
that until now there have only been 32 deaths in Gaza from malnutrition
and 28 of those were among children under 5 years old. No one, however
-- not the UN, or the ICJ, the NGOs or all the media outlets that
magnified and distributed the lies -- has admitted that they were wrong.
On the contrary, on June 18 the New York Times, claiming that Gaza "is facing extreme levels of hunger," continued spreading the lie.
The most recent IPC report, published
on June 25, concluded that the supply of food to Gaza had, in fact,
increased, not decreased, in recent months and that "In this context,
the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently
occurring." '
By comparison, more than three million children in Sudan are acutely malnourished, and a quarter of a million are likely to die in the coming months. By the UN's own admission,
the war in Sudan is "the war the world has either forgotten or
ignored." The irony of that statement has clearly been lost on the UN,
which is probably the main reason that Sudan – and other conflict spots –
is ignored: the UN focuses almost all its resources on Israel and Gaza.
"About 222,000 severely malnourished children and more than 7,000 new
mothers are likely to die in coming months if their nutritional and
health needs remain unmet," the Nutrition Cluster in Sudan – a
partnership of organizations including the UN, Federal Ministry of
Health, and NGOs including Save the Children – recently concluded. Overall, 18 million people in Sudan face starvation. Evidently, no one cares.
The "made-up" famine is just the latest in a long string of
fabrications demonizing Israel's military operations in Gaza, which over
the last months have been exposed as lies yet have received zero
coverage in the media. Predictably, none of the revelations has been
widely published in the mainstream media or acknowledged by
organizations such as the EU or the many NGOs which have been spreading
the lies, such as Human Rights Watch.
Here is a selected list of some of the most exorbitant lies:
Israel is not allowing enough humanitarian aid into Gaza: This claim, based on a lie, was the ostensible reason for US President Joe Biden to build a pier in Gaza. According to UN Watch:
"Data published by both the UN and COGAT shows that as of
April 4, 2024, approximately six months into the war, some 13,000
trucks of food have entered Gaza, which amounts to 272,000 tons of food,
more than double the required amount according to the WFP. Moreover,
while the total number of trucks entering Gaza since before October 7th
has decreased overall, the number of food trucks entering Gaza since
October 7th has doubled. At the same time, it appears that the UN lacks
the logistical capacity to distribute the volume of aid entering. COGAT
has repeatedly criticized the UN for failing to process all trucks
entering the Strip in a given day."
Despite this situation, not of Israel's making, on June 18, UN human
rights chief Volker Tรผrk doubled down on the defamatory accusation that
Israel stops humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. "The arbitrary denial
and obstruction of humanitarian aid have continued," Tรผrk outright lied. "This must end."
Israel has killed more than 37,000 people in Gaza, mainly women and children: For months the media has reported
casualty figures directly from Hamas' propaganda machine, also known as
the Gaza Health Ministry, which the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) happily and uncritically publishes on its
website on a daily basis. Why the UN is acting as a Hamas spokesperson
is intriguing, at least officially, but nevertheless it seems the main
source for journalists reporting on Gaza casualties. Those reported
casualty figures were claimed to be extremely high from the beginning –
currently at more than 37,000 – and almost always stated, according
to Honest Reporting, that the overwhelming majority of the casualties,
around 70%, were women and children. These numbers were unquestioningly
parroted by everyone, including other UN bodies, the EU, the media, and
self-described human rights NGOs.
Then, in early April, Hamas conceded that its numbers were "flawed." TFoundation for the Defense of Democracies wrote:
"The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said on April 6
that it had 'incomplete data' for 11,371 of the 33,091 Palestinian
fatalities it claims to have documented. In a statistical report, the
ministry notes that it considers an individual record to be incomplete
if it is missing any of the following key data points: identity number,
full name, date of birth, or date of death".
In early May, the UN effectively admitted that Hamas's casualty figures were untrustworthy, lowering
the number of fatalities from roughly 34,000 to roughly 24,000 and
reducing the alleged number of childhood casualties from 14,000 to
around 7,800. According to the IDF at the time, 14,000 of those 24,000
were Hamas terrorists, meaning that the actual number of civilian deaths
at that time was closer to 10,000.
"Civilians," in a Palestinian context, at any rate, are a complicated issue. For one thing, many so-called "civilians" took
part in the October 7 massacres alongside trained Hamas terrorists,
making them in effect equivalent to Hamas. In addition, Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad are known for their recruitment of child terrorists. In 2021, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on the "military wing" of Hamas to stop abusing children in its terror activities:
"I call upon the al-Qassam Brigades to cease the
recruitment and use of children and to abide by their national and
international legal obligations. I urge all Palestinian armed groups to
protect children, including by preventing them from being exposed to the
risk of violence or from being exploited for political purposes."
Hamas has been enlisting children under the age of 15 for decades. Hamas also runs military summer camps for children, where they train with the al-Qassam Brigades. According
to Daniel Pรฉrez-Garcรญa, Researcher in the Radicalisation, Prevention
and Security Area of the Research and Projects Department of the
Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies
"In addition to training in the handling of weapons such
as the well-known AK-47, they are trained in the same way as the armed
forces of a conventional army and in irregular tactics... Among other
special training in asymmetric and irregular warfare, the armed factions
of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad teach their youngest members to
kidnap IDF soldiers... In the propaganda publications of both groups, it
can be seen how the individuals in question are minors and how these
methods are disseminated on digital channels such as Telegram..."
Finally, civilians play an active role in Hamas's war atrocities, not
least as hostage keepers. The four hostages freed by Israeli forces
recently were held in private homes, one of them owned by an Al Jazeera "journalist."
Israel is committing "massacres": Repeatedly throughout the
war, Israel has been accused of committing "massacres." One such
accusation was levelled at Israel at the end of May, after Israeli
forces targeted senior Hamas terrorists in a precise strike, but
inadvertently sparking a fire that killed a number of people in a nearby
displaced persons' camp. The strike and the ensuing fire garnered
enormous condemnation, with some calling it a "massacre" and the UN
Security Council holding an emergency session.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres led the incitement against
Israel, as the UN almost always does. "There is no safe place in Gaza.
This horror must stop," he posted
on social media. EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell declared that
he was "horrified by news" of the strike; French President Emmanuel
Macron said he was "outraged."
The precision munitions had targeted two terrorists. The IDF probe found
that the munitions could not have ignited a fire of that size in the
nearby encampment; most likely ammunition, weapons or some other
material was stored in the area of the strike, which caused a secondary
blast and ultimately the fire that spread.
The list of lies goes on, but the defamatory falsehoods, even when
conceded by Hamas or the UN, continue to be spread as part of a
fabricated, malign narrative about Israeli "war crimes" and "genocide."
The lies keep being made up by Hamas and the terror organization's
supporters, and repeated by a media that increasingly reveals itself as
unprofessional and racist. The lies are never corrected, seemingly
because doing so would completely destroy what the media apparently want
you to have about Israel.
Large parts of the "elites" of the international community, including
the UN, the EU, the media, and countless "human rights" NGOs, seem
intent on aiding Iran and its proxies in their ambition to destroy the
world's only Jewish state by perpetuating the lies and the false
narratives. They then feign shock, when antisemitism reaches ever higher
peaks, such as, most recently, the gang rape
of a 12-year-old girl in France because she was Jewish. Hamas's tactics
are now evidently being copied by adolescent boys on the streets of
Europe. Evidently, no one cares.
Robert Williams is a researcher based in the United States.
Hamas, apparently, does not want food or medication to reach the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, particularly not via Israeli border crossings. This situation is most likely caused by Hamas's desire to prolong and aggravate the suffering of the Palestinians and create a "famine" so it can place the blame on Israel.
The Palestinian Authority and
other Arab governments have been reminded in recent days of the reasons
why entering the Gaza Strip after the war would be risky, if not
impossible...
According to reports from the Gaza Strip, Hamas has murdered a
number of Palestinians who it believed had indicated willingness to be
part of a new government that would replace the terrorist group after
the war.
Hamas, apparently, does not want food or medication to reach the
Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, particularly not via Israeli
border crossings. This situation is most likely caused by Hamas's desire
to prolong and aggravate the suffering of the Palestinians and create a
"famine" so it can place the blame on Israel.
"Why is the media ignoring what is going on in central and
southern Gaza? Hamas is assassinating Gazans, particularly tribe
leaders, in order to deter anyone other than Hamas from delivering
humanitarian relief and participating in Gaza." — Hamza Howidy,
Palestinian social media influencer from the Gaza Strip, x.com, June 26,
2024.
Until the international community – and particularly the Biden
administration – fully support Israel's efforts to destroy Hamas,
unfortunately there can be no real discussion of "the day after" in the
Gaza Strip.
Israel... will not be the only party to benefit from Hamas's
demise. A large number of Arabs and Muslims who oppose Hamas and other
Iran-backed Islamist groups will also benefit, even though it is
"politically incorrect" and immensely dangerous to say so.
In reality, those advocating for a "ceasefire" are asking for
Hamas to be allowed to continue ruling the Gaza Strip, rearming, and
gearing up to attack Israel -- in their words, "again and again."
A ceasefire will only ignite an immediate increase in terrorist
attacks against Israel. Worse, Islamists worldwide will be incentivized
to launch attacks not only against Israel but also against Europe.
Islamists have already attacked US troops in the Middle East more than
150 times in the region since Oct 7.
By exposing the crimes of Hamas against its own people and
raising awareness of these threats -- instead of helping the terrorists
cover them up -- the international media can actually help to protect
their own countries against steadily increasing terrorism. At the
moment, terrorists over the world can only see their efforts as
victorious, glorified and rewarded.
According to reports from the Gaza Strip, Hamas has murdered
a number of Palestinians who it believed had indicated willingness to
be part of a new government that would replace the terrorist group after
the war. Pictured: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists share
a moment of friendship for the crowds in Rafah, in the southern Gaza
Strip, on November 28, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
If you think that the Palestinian Authority (PA) or any Arab state
would agree to take control of the Gaza Strip as long as the Iran-backed
terrorist group Hamas has not been totally destroyed and removed from
power, you would be wrong.
Removing the military and governing capabilities of Hamas, however,
unfortunately cannot be achieved as long as the Biden administration and
Western countries keep exerting pressure on Israel to halt the war,
which erupted after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack that resulted
in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of more than 240
others as hostages.
The Palestinian Authority and other Arab governments have been
reminded in recent days of the reasons why entering the Gaza Strip after
the war would be risky, if not impossible, unless Hamas's military
capabilities are first destroyed and the terrorist group is completely
ousted from power.
According to reports from the Gaza Strip, Hamas has murdered
a number of Palestinians who it believed had indicated willingness to
be part of a new government that would replace the terrorist group after
the war.
The most recent victim of Hamas's measures to prevent the emergence
of new leaders in the Gaza Strip is a prominent member of the Abu Amra
clan. Earlier this week, Hamas terrorists shot and killed
him in the Al-Zawaida neighborhood in the center of the Gaza Strip. The
man was reportedly accused of expressing readiness to "collaborate"
with Israel and other countries in distributing humanitarian aid to the
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The Abu Amra clan retaliated by killing two Hamas terrorists. The feud between the Abu Amra clan and Hamas included shooting, and burning property, houses and cars.
Because Hamas and the PA
have reportedly been stealing most of the food and medicine for their
own members, it opposes other Palestinians getting engaged in the
humanitarian aid distribution process. Several Palestinians, as well as aid workers,
who nevertheless defied Hamas and took part in the distribution of food
and medicine in the Gaza Strip were murdered or wounded by the group's
terrorists.
Hamas, apparently, does not want food or medication to reach the
Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, particularly not via Israeli
border crossings. This situation is most likely caused by Hamas's desire
to prolong and aggravate the suffering of the Palestinians and create a
"famine" so it can place the blame on Israel. This plan, in fact, seems to be why Hamas terrorists have been firing rockets at the Kerem Shalom border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The assassination of the Abu Amra clan member and the theft of
humanitarian aid are only a few of the Hamas atrocities that are often
"overlooked" by the mainstream media and those in the West who describe
themselves as "pro-Palestinian."
Additionally, there is almost no discussion in the media or among
"pro-Palestinian" individuals and groups of Hamas's use of Palestinians
as human shields
in its Jihad (holy war) against Israel. Since the beginning of the war,
Hamas terrorists have been firing at Israeli troops from Palestinians'
rooftops, bedrooms, kitchens, backyards, balconies, schools, hospitals,
kindergartens and even the displaced families' tent camps.
"Why is the media ignoring what is going on in central and southern Gaza?" asked
Hamza Howidy, a Palestinian social media influencer from the Gaza
Strip. "Hamas is assassinating Gazans, particularly tribe leaders, in
order to deter anyone other than Hamas from delivering humanitarian
relief and participating in Gaza."
Howidy's question has an easy answer: When Israel is not involved,
the media turns a blind eye. Foreign journalists apparently do not care
when Hamas drags Palestinians into the streets and executes them in cold
blood. These journalists, it appears, do not think it is worth covering
such stories because Israel is not at fault.
The most recent murder of the clan member was not the first incident of its kind. Earlier this year, Hamas terrorists beheaded the leader of the powerful Doghmush clan in the northern Gaza Strip after reports claimed that he had expressed a desire to get his family to oversee the distinction of aid to the Palestinians.
Hamas has also murdered, wounded and arrested PA security officers from the West Bank who allegedly tried to enter
the Gaza Strip under cover of securing aid trucks. A senior Hamas
official said that the officers belonged to the PA's General
Intelligence Service, headed by Major General Majed Faraj.
Another recent Hamas crime that has gone virtually unnoticed by the
international media: Hamas terrorists fired a projectile at a UNICEF
humanitarian aid convoy. The aid convoy was coordinated with Israeli
authorities to reunite children from the northern Gaza Strip with their
families in the south. "During the coordinated activity, the Hamas
terrorist organization fired a projectile at the humanitarian route near
the UNICEF aid convoy and [Israeli] soldiers securing the area," the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. "There were no injuries to international aid workers or IDF soldiers in the attack."
"[The attack on the] UN aid workers and the assassination of the Abu
Amra tribe leader by members of Al-Qassam [Hamas's armed wing]
demonstrate that Hamas is determined to destroy the humanitarian
situation in Gaza and is willing to sacrifice thousands of lives in
order to pressure Israel to end the war so they can survive," remarked Howidy.
Until the international community – and particularly the Biden
administration – fully support Israel's efforts to destroy Hamas,
unfortunately there can be no real discussion of "the day after" in the
Gaza Strip.
Israel, however, will not be the only party to benefit from Hamas's
demise. A large number of Arabs and Muslims who oppose Hamas and other
Iran-backed Islamist groups will also benefit, even though it is
"politically incorrect" and immensely dangerous to say so.
In reality, those advocating for a "ceasefire" are asking for Hamas
to be allowed to continue ruling the Gaza Strip, rearming, and gearing
up to attack Israel -- in their words, "again and again."
A ceasefire will only ignite an immediate increase in terrorist
attacks against Israel. Worse, Islamists worldwide will be incentivized
to launch attacks not only against Israel but also against Europe (see here, here and here). Islamists have already attacked US troops in the Middle East more than 150 times in the region since Oct 7.
By exposing the crimes of Hamas against its own people and raising
awareness of these threats -- instead of helping the terrorists cover
them up -- the international media can actually help to protect their
own countries against steadily increasing terrorism. At the moment,
terrorists over the world can only see their efforts as victorious,
glorified and rewarded.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle
East. The work of Bassam Tawil is made possible through the generous
donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone
is most grateful.
Underlying
this graphic image are numbers that belie any possibility that we lived
in normal times and COVID was a hoax. Sadly, and inexplicably, people
we need to rely on for news that isn’t mainstream misinformation or
fringe element lunacy are reinventing history. For this revisionism to
come from people like Neil Oliver and Tucker Carlson is disappointing.
During the four and a half years we’ve lived through since COVID came
along, 12.4 million Americans have died. If we had been living in normal
times, only 10.5 million Americans would have died. With a sample size
as huge as the U.S. population, this extrapolation can be made with a
high degree of accuracy, as is proven by the remarkable consistency in
death statistics during the years 2013 through 2019.
