Israel at War—On the Ground
As the IDF moves into Gaza in an all-out effort to annihilate the terror group Hamas, voices in the West express "concern."
After all, the situation is "complex" say most progressives and many Democrats—implying that there is some kind of warped symmetry (equivalence) between Hamas' barbaric blood lust that resulting in the rape, murder, torture and mutilation of 1,400 Israeli men, women, and chlidren (not to mention the kidnapping of over 200 people) all the while shouting: “Allahu akbar!”) and Israel's retaliation for that barbarism. Concern morphs into full-blown anti-Israel hatred among those Islamists and their supporters on the hard-Left, who argue that any atrocities committed by Hamas are actually Israel's fault. And yeah, there's just a bit of Jew-Hatred mixed in as well.
Many on the Left and virtually everyone on the hard-Left are fantasy thinkers. They disregard hard facts, are ignorant of history, believe preposterous propaganda (if it conforms to their fantasy thinking), make claims that are not only dishonest but absurd or even insane—and gift wrap their mental excrement in virtue signalling. They are not self-aware, seem incapable of recognizing the hypocrisy they espouse in their hysterical proclamations, and are unconcerned about the viciousness of their words. Instead of shouting “Allahu akbar!” they use other pseudo-religious mantras (e.g., "colonialism") that they think give them the sheen of intellectual inquiry when in fact, it demonstrates their abject ignorance. They are very loud, often threatening, sometimes violent, and unquestionably fanatic in their beliefs—beliefs that have no basis in reality but are amplified by their brethren in the propaganda media.
Like the Islamists who demand the annihilation of Israel, there can be no accommodation for those on the hard-Left. They are garbage people.
And yet, Western leadership tries to accommodate them, arguing that Israeli retaliation will make things worse, that the palestinians will hate them even more, will become more violent, and will commit more terror and more atrocities. If only Israel made concessions (it has); if only it gave palestinians free reign over their own territory (it has), if only it offered peace deals (it has), all of this hatred and violence would go away. IT HASN'T. Garbage thoughts from garbage people.
Victor Davis Hansen comments on all of this and asks a few questions:
In a recent Foreign Affairs essay, the authors argue that prior to the current bloodletting, Hamas was increasingly unpopular among Gazans. But, they insist, Israeli bombing and proposed ground invasion will sadly have the unintended effect of gaining lost sympathy for a once-loathed Hamas among the people of Gaza, and therefore only intensify Israel’s problems and isolation. Maybe, maybe not ...
If Hamas has grown steadily-more unpopular since its 2007 “one man, one vote, once” popular victory, then has that disenchantment and cumulative anger in any material way stopped Hamas from siphoning off hundreds of billions of dollars in Middle Eastern, U.S., UN, and EU largess —or impeded Hamas in carrying out the attack of October 7?Did the fact that numerous civilians followed Hamas fighters into Israel to loot, rape, and kill, while others reviled any Israeli hostage or Israeli corpse they spotted on the streets of Gaza, reflect widespread Hamas support, or not?
Are the masses in the United States who cheer on Hamas’s bloodwork and call for the destruction of Israel at odds with Hamas? Are they proof of Gazans worldwide who would seek peace with Israel, if not for Hamas? Remember – they hit the street before, not after, the Israeli air response.
Or were past negative polls more likely evidence that the popular criticism of Hamas was not that they are utterly corrupt, barbaric, and premodern, but that they are all that and more and yet still-impotent in the face of Israel?
Accordingly, isn’t Hamas now recapturing its former popularity, not by ceasing its own barbarity and corruption, but by focusing its animalistic cruelty far more successfully on killing Jews? If so, the way to undermine Hamas’s popularity is not to enshrine its killing by inaction, but to destroy it utterly and definitively demonstrate that, for all its cruelty and thievery, Hamas was cowardly, weak, and thus justifiably perished ...
But what of others, who cheer Hamas from the sidelines or are its puppet masters:
The more severely Israel deals with Hamas, and the more the world sees that Hamas’s massive infusions of international aid were almost all misappropriated for tunnels and rockets—soon to be rendered into rubble—the less Hezbollah will want a similar scenario in Beirut. And, therefore, the less likely it will be to intervene.
As for Iran, if Hamas is crushed, would it wish the same fate for its greater investment in Hezbollah? Would Iran like to say to the world, “Hezbollah and Beirut are in rubble, but their rocket barrages against the Jews topped even the late, great Hamas’s body count?” Without Hezbollah and Hamas buffers, will Iran be safer, or more exposed?
As for global opinion, it is now anti-Israel as never before, as the stronger power is currently shown to be the weaker. And so the anti-Israeli world concludes that there are no great consequences to its anti-Semitism, especially if Israel takes such a savage blow and does not respond. Is that not sad proof, in an abjectly amoral world, that Israel deserved the blow? If it did not deserve the blow, why did it not respond to kill the killers?
Clarity.
Things are NOT complex. They're really simple.
Hamas is EVIL. [1] Those who support it are EVIL. [1] They are driven by hatred couched in the pseudo-religious fervor of radical islam (“Allahu akbar!”) or the fanaticism of the hard Left. Evil must be destroyed.
Radical Muslims ponder the reality: If they create Hamas 2.0, as they surely will, it too will be destroyed ... because 2.0 will also be EVIL, and evil cannot be allowed to flourish.As for the hard-Left who have taken off their masks and now share common cause with EVIL ... well that's a topic for another day.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] For those progressives and moderate leftists who prefer nuance and "complexity" and are uncomfortable with the word "evil," take a long look at the photo below. The young woman's name is Shani Louk, a German-Israeli who was in attendance at the Music/Peace festival when Hamas EVIL entered her world.
She was captured by Hamas, gang-raped, her legs were broken. She was thrown in the back of a pickup, driven to Gaza City where cheering crowds of palestinians spit on her body while shouting “Allahu akbar!” Hamas proudly streamed these events on-line.
We're not sure when she died, but she is dead. How do we know? Because the IDF found her skull (detached from her body) in Gaza. She was likely beheaded and then dumped. Her body has not been found, but forensic DNA indicates that the skull is hers.
Is that "evil" enough for you, progressives?
And if you try to find "equivalence" between atrocities like the one visited on Shani Louk and the Israeli retaliation to those atrocities (no matter how many palestinians who refused to evacuate are harmed), are you an indirect accomplice to evil?
I think you are.
UPDATE-1:
Ahed Tamimi is an author and "peace activist" (read her faux CV here) who has been characterized as the "palestinian Anne Frank" for her tireless efforts at achieving peace and social justice for her people.
She's one of the good guys, people who don't subscribe to Hamas' tactics and the reason that palestinians should be spared from Israel's retailiation for Hamas' atrocities.
BUT ... wait ...
Here's the real Ahed Tamimi, the mask that made her the darling of progressives now dropped:
Maybe the Shani Louk's skull (you know, the one that came from her severed head), was Ahed Tamimi's afternoon snack. She's the kind of "peace activist" that progressives lionize.
With "peace activists" like Ahed Tamimi', there will be no peace. There should be no peace. The palestinians must be forced to find "peace" somewhere else in the 5 million square miles that make up the Arab crescent. There, and there alone, they can "drink blood and eat skulls."
UPDATE-2:
As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken testified before congress, pro-palestinian protesters (insurrection, anyone?) wrapped themselves in the faux-morality of victimization and called him a "murderer" while demanding an immediate "cease fire."
Alan Dershowitz contends that there are no pro-palestinian protests, just pro-Hamas and pro-Anti-Semtism. I agree and given that, take a hard look at the photo below:
I'm truly humbled by the morality displayed by these despicable people. But the bloody hands are a nice touch. Does it symbolize the Hamas atrocities in general, or maybe it's Israeli infant's blood or possibly it's the blood that ran down the legs of Hamas' gang rape victims? I guess the media will have to ask the "protestors."
The "free gaza" inscriptions are a bit redundant, though. To make things more interesting, I'm surprised that some of their inscriptions didn't read:
"Rape, then Kill, then Mutilate—the palestinian way"
or
"Use Human Shields—Protect Hamas Lives"
or
Garbage people.