Posts Tagged ‘hamas’

Haditha, Gaza and the Up Against the Wall Conundrum.

Posted: March 7, 2024 by datechguy in culture, Israel, Israel vs Hamas, middle east
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as: “A bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.”

Curiously, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica which fell through a rift in the time-space continuum from 1000 years in the future describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as: “A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.”

The attacks on Israel in the press, on campus, in large marches and in the arab have one thing in common: The complete lack of reliance on the actual facts on the ground.

No matter what Israel does, no matter how they respond they are accused of genocide and no amount of reality or the pointing out that all of this comes from Hamas not only launching the attacks of Oct 7th but their claim that they intend to repeat said attacks if and when possible.

This brought back to mind a letter I wrote to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit about the Haditha “massacre” before the facts came out and the lawsuit against rep Murtha began and the question: “When will Biden apologize to the Haditha marines?” was asked. The email said:

There is one aspect about Haditha that seems to be ignored by everybody.

Our press and the anti-American left both in this country and outside of it has been reporting “Hadithas” over and over again over the last three years.

Time and time again our friends have accused us of every possible atrocity that there is to the point that internationally people are already able to believe this or the 9/11 stuff or all the rest.

Because of this, internationally it is totally irrelevant if the Marines actually violated the rules of war. Our foes are going to say that we’ve done things if we do them or not, so the only people that it really matters to will be; the people killed (and family) and the people in our own country who support the military.

The real danger is that we who support the war will reach the point that we say “we might as well be taken as wolves then as sheep”. At that point the left can celebrate that they have made our military and those who support it the people they claim we are. Once that happens however any compunction about respecting them will be gone, and remember one side is armed and one is not.

That is a fate that I don’t wish on any of us.

You could take out the word “haditha” and replace it with “Genocide” and take out the word “Marines” and replace it with “IDF” and take out the words “anti-American” and replace it with “anti-Semitic” and that paragraph would pretty much hold up.

This leads to the logical question. Since no matter what they do they will be accused of “genocide” why not simply flatten Raffa, slaughter Hamas without mercy or concern for civilian causalities and end the issue once and for all? You would lose the hostages assuming any are actually alive but would likely save the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers who would die by trying to protect a population that wants them and their families dead anyways.

That’s important to remember. The Palestinians of Gaza aren’t upset at the slaughter of Jews, they celebrated it, they’re upset that said slaughter had consequences for them.

That’s the real question: Will Israel eventually decide to treat Hamas & Gazans they same way every other Arab & Muslim leader treats them if they get in the way. The way any other nation would treat a land that attacked them as they did. When will Israel say: ENOUGH! and give notice to the arabs who want to kill them in Gaza, West Bank, Yemen or even Qatar that if they try to kill Jews or finance those who do so, neither they nor their buildings nor their treasure is safe?

I suspect they will not and the reason is the against the wall conundrum and it works like this:

At any given time there are a lot of people who deserve to be put up against the wall, the problem is as soon as you decide to start putting such people up against the wall you invariably turn into the type of person who deserves to be put up against the wall.

Speaking for myself I’d say that cost is too high.

Israel has decided to set a standard that the world is unlikely to follow, but having made that choice there is no point in changing direction now that the war is almost over.

But the temptation to do so never leaves.

Rep Talib: Bad Ends Right Means

Posted: February 20, 2024 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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As you might guess I’m not much of a fan of Representative Talib of Michigan. She is an ultra leftist anti-Semite who is wrong on almost every issue out there.

Her defense of Hamas is horrible although to be fair as a Palestinian brought up by Palestinians, I’m less shocked by the antisemitism than most because of what she has been taught all her life. It would be extraordinary if she wasn’t an anti-Semite and frankly coming from the district she represents it she likely would not be sitting in congress if she didn’t have her current opinions on Israel.

But while I strongly object to all of these things this story concerning her suggestion that Michigan Democrat voters protest Biden’s “support” for Israel by voting uncommitted in the Michigan primary is quintessentially American:

It’s early voting time in Michigan. On Saturday, Tlaib was outside a polling place, a civic center, and urged Michigan Democrats to show Biden they condemn his support of Israel in the Israel-Hamas war. The uncommitted movement tracks with her recent votes in Congress. She and fellow Squad member Rep.Cori Bush (D-MO) voted against banning Hamas terrorists from entering the United States. Tlaib was the only vote in the House to refuse to condemn the rape of women by Hamas. 

Any reader of this blog knows that I not only support Israel here but think that the destruction of Hamas is long overdue. I think she’s wrong and dead wrong.

In addition to being dead wrong she is going about advancing her dead wrong position in exactly the right way. In a republic if you have a position you wish political leaders to support what are you supposed to do? You energize a voting block to pressure pols to adopt the position you are trying to advance.

This is exactly how our system is supposed to work and as the Muslim population grows in the US and starts to outstrip other communities these methods are more likely to be effective. The fact that she is pushing for something horrible is not relevant to the method being used. Of course the irony that she is using this democratic method to support a group of people who violently exterminate any internal opposition is likely lost on her but that’s to be expected.

I suspect as the Tom Hagen math continues in Talib’s favor you will see a lot of Democrats walking away from Israel. With luck Hamas will be a footnote in history long before that date.

Israel Rescues Two Hostages That’s Two More Hostages Then I Expected them to Save

Posted: February 12, 2024 by datechguy in Israel, Israel vs Hamas
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While all eyes are currently on what was one of the most dramatic and exciting Superbowl Games in the history of the sport the real prize of the day goes to the IDF, Shin Bet who managed to raid a location where two of their hostages were being held and rescued them at the cost of only one wounded while taking out quite a large number of Hamas.

That they were able to get hostages freed at all is incredible, that they managed to pull this off in only an hour is staggering, that they did so without Israeli causalities seems almost impossible.

The spike of the football, the raid took place in the city of Raffa which apparently the Biden Administration has been pressuring the Israeli government to leave alone. As Elder of Ziyon put it:

Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and the US have been pressuring Israel not to operate in Rafah. After seeing that hostages are kept there and Israel saved some, practically no Israelis will agree.

I’m presuming that Hamas will be smuggling any remaining living hostages out of the country but frankly if I’m Egypt I really don’t want to be seen as part of that operation. Then again:

Oh and this article dropped before the hostage rescue:

Egypt has warned Hamas that it must agree to a hostages-for-ceasefire deal with Jerusalem within two weeks to avert an Israel Defense Forces operation in the terror group’s last stronghold in the Gaza Strip, the southernmost city of Rafah, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

This week, Israel will reportedly dispatch to Cairo negotiators to discuss a new hostage deal with U.S., Egyptian and Qatari officials.

Given that drawing Egypt into a war with Israel would be a big win for Hamas I’m betting they’re not going to listen to that advice.

The #Unexpectedly Chronicles Democratic Socialists Support Hamas’ Oct 7th Attacks and then wonder where the (Liberal Jewish) Money Went?

Posted: January 23, 2024 by datechguy in Israel, Israel vs Hamas, politics, Uncategorized
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Both Glenn Reynolds:

COMMUNISTS ALWAYS RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: AOC-affiliated Democratic Socialists of America in ‘financial crisis.’ “The seven-figure deficit comes after the DSA, which leads anti-Israel protests across the country, did not publicly condemn the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks.”

And Stacy McCain:

What? You’re telling me that socialists are not good at managing finances and budgets? I’m shocked — shocked! — by this revelation:

“Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are facing an internal bloodbath as they beg staff members to volunteer to lose their jobs amid a funding crisis.“

Note the decline in revenues for the Democrat Socialists of America. Stacy’s link notes interesting quotes from the piece:

The DSA said they “should be thriving,” but they instead are seeing a “decline in revenue, membership, and overall excitement.”
“We’re living in a moment when revived labor struggles and the fight for a free Palestine are galvanizing so many Americans,” the organization said, adding it’s “treading water” and things will continue to be tough.

They seem to not grasp the connection between a sudden decline in revenue and their support for the October 7th attacks and the connected campaign of intimidation of Jews on expensive college campus’ nationwide. ln one respect it’s reasonable that they believed this when you consider recent history:

They pledged allyship to other groups in their tent, not to Judaism or Israel. This was evident in 2019 when daily attacks began on Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. Activist synagogues in places like Park Slope, which would have been at the forefront of marches had any other group come under attack, spent years staying silent about it. The attackers, often caught on video, were frequently other minorities, not MAGA hat-wearing white people as they would have hoped, so it was awkward to raise a fuss. Progressive politics was the code they followed, and Judaism was an identity umbrella like all the others in their movement. “As a Jew …” they would begin their lectures. As a Jew, they were rarely interested in Judaism.

After all if daily attacks on Jews in Brooklyn didn’t chase away the funds from “reform” or “conservative” Jews why should support for Oct 7th make a difference when it’s time for the Jewish parents of those kids to write a check? After all wasn’t leftism their true religion?

For many liberal Jews, it was hard to ignore that it wasn’t the boogeyman white supremacists that they had been warned about their entire lives. No, it was their professors, their co-workers at the nonprofit, friends of their college-aged kids calling for an end to Israel and celebrating the murder of Jews. And these hateful marches were not happening in rural Alabama, in the places they were taught to fear, but mainly in the bluest of blue cities.

The political bedfellows they had slept beside were sharply opposed to Israel doing anything but simply accepting the attacks of Oct. 7.

By Oct. 8, their “allies” had already taken to the streets, some in grotesque glee over the slaughter of Jews in their homes, others tearing down posters of kidnapped children, to say Israel should just sit down and take it.

In fact their difficulty in accepting the reality of who their actual friends are is perfectly encapsulated in this tweet:

Realty hasn’t hit the monied liberal community hard enough for them to support Donald Trump, the man who actually moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem after presidents had promised to for decades and never did, the man who pushed the Abraham accords. That, for now at least, is a bridge too far as it risks a final split from the media left.

It does seem however that reality has hit them hard enough that they’ve apparently decided not to fund the people who want to see them dead.

It’s a start.

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