Israel at War—The Lies Begin

Before discussing the lies, a few updated statistics:

• Over 1,000 Israeli's murdered and killed in overnight fighting (most are civilians)
• Over 2,500 wounded, many seriously
• Over 100 men women and children kidnapped and secreted in Gaza
• Dozens of young woman raped by Hamas terrorists at Music festival; some then executed
  

But according to more than a few leftist morons (think: the Democratic Socialists who conducted pro-palestinian demonstrations in NYC, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale and elsewhere) and a smaller number of right-wing neo-nazis, all of this is Israeli's fault for not allowing Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezballah, along with other Islamist groups, to eradicate them.

As many of us predicted on Day 1, the lies have started. The Left controls the narrative delivered by the vast majority of mainstream media outlets in the United States and throughout the West. The Left has demonstrated repeatedly over the years that it is no friend of Israel, demanding that Israel acquiese to a two-state solution that would result in the eradication of their nation. And therefore, it is the Left that creates and promotes the most virulent anti-Israel lies. Unlike the thugs on the hard right who state unequivocally that they hate Jews, the Left is more subtle. They tell us that they dislike Israel because it "oppresses" people who have sworn to eradicate Israel and refuse to recognize its right to exist (think: Hamas, Hezballah and the mad-Mullahs in Iran). But heavens no, the Left is so caring and virtuous, they would NEVER be anti-Semitic as they cheer those who chant 'death to Israel.' Yeah ... right. 

It should come as no surprise that members of the Squad, a hard-left contingent within the Democratic party, have called for an "immediate cease fire on both sides." After all, their favorite terrorist group, Hamas, has already inflicted more that 1,000 dead and 2,500 injured in Israel, has raped and then murdered innocent young woman and posted videos of that atrocity online, has kidnapped grandmothers, along with an estimated 100 Israelis, along with a few Americans. Now that Israel has begun to retaliate, it's time for this stop, they wail.

It should also come as no surprise that the leftist propaganda media, exemplified by NYT and WaPo, insist on labeling Hamas terrorists as "militants" to soften their image, no doubt, along with publishing headlines that, as predicted, imply moral equivalence between Hamas' atrocities and the Israeli defensive response.

Finally, as expected, news reports out of the Wall Street Journal indicate that Iran planned and trained the Hamas terrorists, funded their weapons, and supplied the rockets necessary for cross border attacks on Israeli civilian population centers.

What may surprise some is the Biden administration's seemingly whole-hearted support for Israel. But words are cheap, and the Biden Team-of-1s has been known to tell a fib or two. Consider that the Biden administration insisted on establishing a State Department "Office of Palestinianian Affairs" and quietly channeled millions of dollars designated for elsewhere to the palestinians. Also consider that Biden allowed the release of $6 billion in sanctioned funds back to Iran, then claimed that these fungible monies couldn't possibly have been used to bankroll any attack because they have not yet been released. If you don't understand why this claim is this ludicrous, look up the definition of "fungible."

Like the hard-left ideologues who populate the squad, the "Office of Palestinianian Affairs" posted the following admonition when the conflict began: “We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

Victor Davis Hansen comments:

... as lots of us predicted, that insane virtue signal would eventually be taken down—but only in response to Americans outraged at its amoral inanity. 

Was our government’s first inclination to stop Israel’s counter-responses to systematic Hamas murdering? Should Israelis accept another 800, 1,000, or 2,000 dead women and children in the interest of abiding by the instruction of the American “Office of Palestinian Affairs” to avoid “retaliatory attacks”? 

For that matter, does the Biden administration admonish Ukraine to refrain from “retaliatory attacks”—since, in its logic, responding to Putin’s “terror” with Ukrainian counter “violence” would “solve nothing”? 

Or is it just Israel, a democratic ally, that deserves these sermons? 

Or do they not reflect the embarrassing reality that there is a core Democratic base—the toxic Squad, AOC's Democratic Socialists, the fusion media, and some of the identity politics caucuses—who are Hamas apologists, even if that bankrupt ideology descends into ignoring or condoning the abject slaughter of civilians in their homes? 

And are we really to believe, as told, that resumption of hundreds of millions dollars in aid to the Palestinians was also not fungible and used to aid the current murderous agendas of Hamas?

The message—don't listen to what the Biden administration says, watch what it has done and will do. It's scrambling right now to deny any culpability for indirectly aiding Hamas or Iran, the two perpetrators of this terror attack.

Meanwhile, Israel has begun to decimate Gaza, providing advance warning for its inhabitants to vacate the city (no ... it is not a "refugee camp"). 

There will be deaths, and that is unfortunate, but I suspect there will be an order or magnitude more lies by the usual suspects.

UPDATE-1:

Eugene Kontorovich pulls no punches when he describes the harsh reality that fantasy thinkers within our government and throughout much of the Left (including the Israeli Left) refuse to accept:

First, call it the Iran-Gaza War. To be sure, Hamas bears responsibility, and any serious Israeli response will involve its total, unconditional defeat. But Hamas is an ally and instrument of Iran ...

In the north, Israel faces Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy that has de facto control over much of Lebanon, with a vast arsenal of missiles aimed at Israeli cities. Iran is reportedly close to nuclear breakout. This is the war with Israel that it wants—on Israeli soil, through once-removed marauding militias. Tehran terrorizes much of the Middle East in this manner.

Any serious response must go through Tehran. If the U.S. and the international community are truly outraged by the scenes of senior citizens gunned down on the street and women and children abducted, they must not only refrain from limiting Israel’s operation in Gaza but resolve to oust the genocidal regime in Tehran. President Biden’s policy has been exactly the opposite. His administration has sought rapprochement ...

Another lesson involves the high cost of Israeli territorial concessions. Until 2005, there were many Jewish communities in Gaza, known as the Gush Katif settlements. Palestinians routinely attacked and attempted to infiltrate them. Israel’s critics claimed the presence of these communities caused conflict. Some Israelis wondered why significant resources should go to protecting these small towns. In 2005, Israel’s army completely withdrew from Gaza and uprooted every Jewish community, even taking the bodies from the cemeteries. Now the whole country faces the danger those communities face, but 100 times worse. The myth that the presence of Jewish communities beyond the 1949 armistice line is the root cause of the conflict has now been firmly disproved. Israel left Gaza voluntarily. Now Gaza comes to Israel, and it is literally dragging Jewish women back there.

The last paragraph is the most important. Fantasy thinkers (who believe the pseudo-history of the region promulgated by palestinian apologists) assert that concessions, appeasement and self-governance will somehow mollify Islamists. It hasn't, it won't, and it never will.

UPDATE-2:

There are those who suggest that the anonymous cabal that runs the Biden administration (Given Joe's obvious congitive disability) are retreads fro the Obama administration. Given that, Ashley Rindberg writes:

It’s been over 48 hours since the terror rampage that struck Israel. And in that time there has been a flood of statements of support from around the world as well, of course, as vile celebrations of the deaths of Jews.

But amid all the voices that have spoken, one stands out among them for its silence. For these past 48 hours, Barack Obama has not issued a single word in response to the catastrophe. At the time of writing, he has still not issued a statement of support, or even so much as calls for restraint. One may come soon (and, by the time you read this, may already have arrived), but this vast stretch of silence has already become deafening ...

The situation unfolding in Israel is precisely the one for which Obama laid the foundation during the eight years of his presidency. The Iran deal, in whose name the administration twisted itself into a moral pretzel, was forced into policy not because Obama has any great passion for the mullahs in Tehran, but because it was predicated on a wholesale restructuring of the Middle East.

In this view, an ascendant Iran would be a counter-balance to Israel. It would force Israel’s hand in dealing the Palestinian situation in the way that Obama and his foreign policy circle believed was the only way. It would counter Saudi Arabian power as well, creating a sort of triangle of tension to maintain balance. But the key to it was to speed up Iran’s march to power by allowing the country to remain at the edge of nuclear breakout, which is what — explicitly — the Iran deal did.

This regional restructuring was supposed to be a policy driven by Obama’s “realism” (as it was trumpeted by the media). But it was never realism. It was a contorted idealism rooted in Obama’s rejection of American exceptionalism, including the notion that Western liberal democratic values deserved any primacy in any part of the world. The hands-off approach would allow regional dynamics to establish local equilibrium without what, in Obama’s view, was the destructive influence of American intervention.

I called Obama Iran Deal a "dangerous fantasy" when it was proposed. Bibi Netanyahu's public and vocal opposition to the deal (Bibi was, of course, correct) made Obama look foolish and stoked hatred of Bibi and Israel among Obama loyalists within the Democratic party. some of whom now work for Biden.

Obama's Team of 2s believed a geopolitical fantasy. Like all fantasy thinking, it crumbled when reality intruded. The result is a rouge Iranian regime that should have been stopped in 1979 by yet another failed Democratic President, Jimmy Carter. In the many decades that have passed, Iran has precipitated grave suffering throughout the Middle East, exemplified by the events of the past three days.

UPDATE-3:

As I survey the media this morning, leftists are scrambling to justify and/or at least 'understand' the pro-palestinian demonstrations that have broken out in some major U.S. cities. 

"Being anti-Zionist is not being anti-Semitic," they exclaim nervously as they watch video posts of young Israeli women being dragged by the hair across dirt roads, raped and then murdered by Hamas 'anti-Zionists.' If you have the stomach for it, here's a video posted by Hamas that depicts their depravity, so please spare me the tears and the progressive outrage when the IDF decimates Gaza. FAFO.

David Bernstein provides the following comment (sorry, no link is available) on Instapundit:

Here’s a test, which in my experience almost all leftist “antizionists” fail. Most of them will claim that they have some solution in mind to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will protect the rights of what would become the Jewish minority in “Palestine.”

So you ask them, “well, what if it turns out as a practical matter that your one-state solution, if implemented, will likely result in the murder/expulsion/oppression of the 7.5 million Jews in Israel. Would you still support it?” This should be an easy question to answer, especially given that it’s a pure hypothetical that could not be binding. I’ve asked this many times to “antizionists,” and I’ve never received an unequivocal “no.” Like I said, they are ok with genocide.

Heh.

Update-4:

As an aside: 

Millions upon millions of 'migrants' move across international boundaries each year. They do this both legally and illegally, but they do it. Millions of Muslims have fled Libya and Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan to gain a better life. During the Biden years, we've had millions from South and Central America cross the border into the United States.

Israel is a tiny country, smaller than New Jersey. It's land mass is 8,630 square miles.

The land mass of the Muslim countries of North Africa and the Arabian Gulf including Iran comprises well over 3.2 million square miles.

So, little Israel represents about 2 tenths of 1 percent of the Islamic crescent land mass, and yet, the Muslims of the Islamic crescent cannot tolerate its existence. Only the nomatic people who renamed themselves 'palestinians' after 1948 have a claim to the 8,630 square miles that the Jews have inhabited for millennia, at least according to them and their leftist supporters.

Maybe it's time for another immigration movement—for the Gazans. Maybe they should leave—or be ejected—from Gaza and move elsewhere. It wouldn't be the first time something that this has happened, particularly when a people is soooo "oppressed." After all, there's plenty of room in neighboring Muslim countries, isn't there?