Posts Tagged ‘middle east’

This should be our policy in Israel: American hostages released or Hamas leaders dead

Posted: November 26, 2023 by John Ruberry in Israel, Israel vs Hamas, middle east, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

In 1904, a Greek American, Ion Hanford Perdicaris, was kidnapped by Ahmed al-Raisuli, a Moroccan tribal leader. Theodore Roosevelt was president. And the official American response to Perdicaris being taken hostage was simple: “We want Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” There’s more. Roosevelt sent several companies of Marines and seven warships to Morocco. 

The end result was a compromise. Perdicaris was freed and the sultan of Morocco paid a ransom to Raisuni, but also $4,000 to the United States to cover the expenses of the incident.

Moving to the present, our current president, Joe Biden, hasn’t done much more than beg for the release of ten-or-so Americans held in Gaza by Hamas terrorists. 

Yeah, yeah, I know the rest of that narrative, which roughly is, “We’re working behind the scenes to secure the release of all American hostages,” or something like that. 

Begging is more accurate, I believe.

As of this writing, 58 hostages have been released by Hamas, but only one American, 4-year-old Abigail Mor Edan, whose parents were murdered by the terrorists. She was released this morning, as part of third round of hostage released–a fourth is expected on Monday—which is part of a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Israel in turn has released at least 100 Palestinian prisoners.

Obviously, most of the released hostages are Israelis, but ten Thai hostages are now free, as well as one Filipino and one Russian.

Thailand clearly gets more respect than America, although none of the hostages should have been taken.

Hostage-taking and purposeful killing of civilians are both war crimes–not that Hamas cares about that. 

Biden, who favors a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians–which would presumably include Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists–came across far less forceful than Teddy Roosevelt, when speaking of Abigail’s release.

“What she endured is unthinkable,” Biden said. “Thank God she’s home. I just can’t imagine the enjoyment. I wish I were there to hold her.” 

Eww.

Instead, Biden should say this: American hostages released or the Hamas leaders dead.

But Biden, even though he is clearly suffering from cognitive decline, apparently still has enough brain cells for now to realize he’s a tool of the growing hate-Israel wing within the Democrat Party.

Election Day in America is less than a year away.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

A Mideast Thanksgiving

Posted: November 21, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

Thanksgiving Day, 1984

By Christopher Harper

Only some people in the Middle East really understand Thanksgiving Day. More often than not, that might be because there is little to be thankful for.

In 1984, I brought together a group of Lebanese, Syrians, and a bunch of Europeans in the middle of one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Many of us worked in some way for ABC News in Beirut and Damascus.

It was difficult to travel between the two cities as foreigners, so I decided we should meet near Baalbeck, an ancient city about six miles east of Beirut and just about the same distance west of Damascus.

The Romans built an exquisite city there, which had become a training center for terrorists. Ironically, it was about the only place that we could get people from Syria and Lebanon to meet, where most of them could be safe. Americans—actually, I was the only one—weren’t so safe. But I had spent a lot of time in Baalbeck, and I was young and rather foolish back then.

The infamous Commodore Hotel in Beirut found a turkey and some sweet potatoes—no small feat—and added some traditional Arabic dishes. I still remember how the chefs put everything on platters.

The group of about 20 people included:

  • Two British and French videographers who didn’t get along too well.
  • Two Syrian and Lebanese businessmen who didn’t like one another.
  • Two Shia and Druze men who didn’t trust one another.
  • Others who didn’t think much of me.

The sun shone brightly over the Bekaa Valley, a beautiful but troubled part of the world. No one talked about football games or family feuds. We didn’t talk about failed peace negotiations or the deaths of more than 200 U.S. soldiers sent to Lebanon as peacekeepers and killed by Islamic terrorists. We didn’t talk about the bombing of Lebanon by U.S. ships. We spent a wonderful afternoon talking about the present and the future, our families, and our dreams. We talked about everyday and important things in life. We drank a bit too much wine and araq, a potent Middle Eastern liqueur.

We left with a better sense of what we knew about one another and what we did not know about one another. More importantly, we talked about what we had in common as human beings.

Five Israel Thoughts Under the Fedora: Only Shocking if you Didn’t Pay Attention, 2A case closed, Updates, Going the full Sherman and Priorities

Posted: October 9, 2023 by datechguy in Israel, middle east
Tags: , , , , ,

I am shocked SHOCKED at the number of media people and pols in places from Australia to Canada to New York who are shocked SHOCKED at the number of Muslims in their countries who are all for kidnapping women, gang raping them , murdering them and the desecration of their bodies.

All you had to do is pay attention to what they’ve been saying for years to know this.

A basic rule that every Sicilian knows is this: If someone says they want to kill you, believe them.

of course given the Tom Hagen math of Islam in America I suspect the outcry against this by Dems will be at brief at best.

I was actually rather shocked to find out that Israel had loosened their guns laws in the wake of the Hamas attacks. Not because it was a bad move but I naturally presumed that a nation where almost everyone serves and is constantly under terror threat already had their civilians well armed.

That they have not is a tribute to wishful thinking and idiocy.

However it has provided an answer to the question oft asked by the left: “Why does anyone need an AR-15 and if they suggest that the US is not Israel all we have to do is show pictures of those marching in New York and DC and elsewhere in support of murder, gang rape and kidnapping.

Apparently there will be regular updates from Israel on how the fighting is going, this is the first one:

I’ll be watching this daily, you should too.

Yesterday I suggested that Israel needs to fight General Sherman’s War and to consider the hostages dead and not hold back based on them ,of course if they can save them they should but not at the cost of destroying Hamas. :

The only way to prevent this from happening again is to destroy their ability to make war. It will be messy and it will be horrible, but it will end the threat from Gaza once and for all.

They need to take to heart these words by General William Tecumseh Sherman

  • You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. 

And those curses need to be poured out in Gaza to all those who aid abet and cheer Hamas’ actions in the same way that Sherman poured those curses on the people of Georgia and the Carolinas. What are your critics going to say that they aren’t already saying about you now? Sherman again:

  •  “We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and we must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.” The hard war was here for Georgia. “We cannot change the hearts and minds of those people of the South, but we can make war so terrible . . . [and] make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.”

The time for mercy is after the enemy is defeated and helpless at your feet, until then the war should be fought hard until it’s won.

Well I don’t have the readership I once did in Israel but it appears somebody took this advice to heart:

Israel has decided that its attacks on terrorist targets in Gaza will be carried out with great force and breadth, even at the cost of harming Israelis who are being held captive in Gaza, a senior government source tells reporters.

The source clarifies that if Israel has precise intelligence information on the location of Israeli captives, it will of course refrain from attacking in that specific location. But so long as no such information exists, all Hamas targets will be attacked.

So will will be Sherman’s War instead of the old game after all. Given that the left has always accused Israel of genocide I can’t think that their cries are going to make much of a difference.

Finally one might wonder how one of the supposedly finest intelligence agency in the world got caught off guard and how the US got caught off guard as well.

Given the US armies priorities of transgenderism and progressive indoctrination and the FBI’s giving priority of targeting parents at school board meetings, Trump voters and Catholics who regularly attend mass I’m not shocked that they had no time to watch for this kind of thing.

But now I understand that the Mossad was concentrating on fighting Bibi these days.

Might I suggest that taking a page out of the American left’s playbook is always a bad idea.

Five One Liners Under Other Bloggers Fedoras Instapundit, Right Wing Granny, Fisherville Mike, Adrinenne’s Corner and The Lid

Posted: August 22, 2020 by datechguy in blogs, culture, education, middle east, politics, Sports
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

IF I WERE THE GOP, I’D JUST RUN CLIPS OF THE DNC DURING THE RNC:

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

Nothing hurts the Democrats more than people seeing them as they are

Sudan (and the other Arab countries) have to make a choice–do they want to submit to Iran or make peace with Israel and remain as independent countries? 

From Right Wing Granny:

The very idea that Sudan is even considering peace with Israel is completely surreal.

But instead of watching sports in June and July, TV viewers watched Fox News.

From Fisherville Mike

I can’t wait till the next round of negotiations for TV contracts for the four major sports takes place.

This is not how we’re supposed to live.

From Adrienne’s Corner

The more I’ve seen of Americans submitting to the mask lie the less I’ve been confused as to how people fell for Communism and Fascism in the 20th century.

It’s not racist to insist that everyone learn to use the same language, it is racist to say that one group doesn’t have the brains to learn the same language as everyone else.

From The Lid

I’m old enough to remember when it was only white supremacists who insisted Black Americans were incapable of achieving at the level of others.

(fyi He’s always be the Yid with Lid to me)

Older Entries