Friday: Hili dialogue

October 13, 2023 • 6:45 am

It’s Friday the 13th! Welcome to Friday, October 13, 2023, and National Peanut Festival. Here’s the famous “Mr. Peanut,” the symbol of Planters. Did you know that his real name is Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald-Smythe?

It’s also English Language Day, National M&M Day, World Egg Day, Good Samaritan Day, the U.S. Navy’s birthday (the Continental Congress established the Continental Navy on October 13, 1775), National Yorkshire Pudding Day (cultural appropriation), and International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the October 13 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*As I posted a short while ago, the ground invasion of Gaza by Israel, an inevitability, has started, at least with Israel telling civilians to move south.  Hamas has told them not to move. Stay tuned.

*Here’s the good news of the day: Stanford University is apparently going to adhere to the kind of institutional neutrality on ideological, political, and moral issues as prescribed by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report:

I have no objection to anything in Saller’s and Martinez’s statement, which is very good. I wish only that other schools would adopt this sensible position, designed to avoid chilling speech by avoiding taking “official positions” on issues that don’t affect the University. But only the University of Chicago and the University of North Caroolina at Chapel Hill have adopted such a policy. I hope that other schools follow.

*Over at the NYT, Nicholas Kristof says in so many words that Israel had better not invade Gaza.

There’s a reason that four successive Israeli prime ministers have chosen not to invade and occupy Gaza. Urban combat is a nightmare, whether for Americans in Falluja or Russians in Grozny, and civilian casualties are often enormous. That’s particularly true in a place like Gaza, where civilians cannot flee.

If we owe a moral responsibility to Israeli children, then we owe the same moral responsibility to Palestinian children. Their lives have equal weight. If you care about human life only in Israel or only in Gaza, then you don’t actually care about human life.

What that means in practice is difficult to navigate. Israel has a right to respond, and in war, civilians inevitably suffer.

. . .There will be no optimal solution in Gaza, any more than there was in Afghanistan or Iraq. We are fated to inhabit a world with more problems than solutions, and it’s fair to feel conflicted about next steps. Israel will face hard choices in the coming weeks; its challenge will be to respond to war crimes without committing war crimes.

We don’t want to replicate in Gaza the approach reportedly expressed by an American Army major in Vietnam in 1968: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

The counsel we Americans should offer Israel is threefold and admittedly difficult to follow. First, Israel has right on its side when it goes after its assailants. Second, urban combat has a poor record in achieving its goals — and a considerable history of horrendous casualties. Third, if your moral compass is attuned to the suffering of only one side, your compass is broken, and so is your humanity.

Okay, Mr. Kristof, what’s your sollution. You won’t countenance increased bombing because, given Hamas’s policy of using human shields, that will kill civilians. You won’t countenance a siege because Palestinians will suffer. And you won’t countenance a ground invasion because there will again be carnage that involves civilians. What kind of “going after its assailants” do you recommend. I can say this: no matter what answer Israel comes up with, the world will condemn it.

*I am sick to death, and deeply depressed, as I see students from all over America blaming Israel for Hamas’s brutal slaughter. (For one addlebrained and morally obtuse example, from Stanford, go here.) It’s as if many students hate Jews so much that they blame Israel for the slaugher, rape, and kidnapping of Jewish civilians. Here’s one response by Bari Weiss at the Free Press: “Campus cowardice and where the buck stops“:

But according to the prevailing ideology that rules American college campuses, violent acts include “misgendering” and “harmful language,” and so these acts must be condemned publicly in the strongest possible terms, the perpetrators punished.

When it comes to the mass slaughter of Jews in Israel by a genocidal terrorist organization, however, such condemnations and consequences are curiously absent.

Contrast what colleges will tolerate with what they won’t. Microaggressions are met with moral condemnation. Meanwhile, campuses will tolerate—even glorify—the wanton murder of Jews—actual violence. Indulge in this at UCLA and you can get extra credit. [Check the link.]

Yale professor Zareena Grewal has spent the last few days apologizing for Hamas on social media. “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard,” she said on X, as more horrifying details emerged about the pogrom in southern Israel. Grewal also explained that you shouldn’t feel too sorry about the kidnapping of an Israeli woman taken back to Gaza on a motorbike by Hamas because she had once served in the IDF.

. . . .The campus administrators—so quick to offer statements on climate change and the war in Ukraine and Roe v. Wade—offered silence or equivocation this week in the face of mass murder. Meanwhile, student groups at some of the most elite college campuses in the country were positively gleeful.

  • Over 30 student groups at Harvard said of the 1,200 Israelis who have been slaughtered that “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”
  • A joint statement from Columbia University’s Palestine Solidarity groups wrote “we remind Columbia students that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is rooted in international law, under which occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land.”
  • Northwestern University’s Middle Eastern and North African Student Association “grieves for the martyrs and the civilians lost in this time.”
  • A student group at California State University in Long Beach advertised its “Day of Resistance: Protest for Palestine” event on Tuesday with a poster that showed a crowd waving the Palestinian flag and a Hamas paraglider—a symbol of mass murder—in the top corner.
  • At Stanford, hand-painted signs appeared on buildings declaring: “The Israeli occupation is NOTHING BUT AN ILLUSION OF DUST.” (In The Stanford Review, Free Press intern Julia Steinberg wrote that, on Instagram, “my classmates posted infographics declaring that, ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ ”)
  • Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Virginia declared on Sunday that “The events that took place yesterday are a step towards a free Palestine.”

. . .College leaders, this isn’t complicated. If you’re still confused, take a leaf out of University of Florida president Ben Sasse’s book. Two lines stick out in the statement from the former U.S. senator from Nebraska. First: “What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism.” Second: “We will protect our Jewish students from violence.”

See how easy that is?

*People keep doubting whether Iran has a role in Hamas’s attack on Israel: even Wednesday’s NBC News said that the U.S. government couldn’t confirm a role of Iran. Yesterday’s NYT says this (my emphasis):

In Washington, a Treasury Department official told Democrats in Congress that Iran would be blocked from accessing $6 billion that the Biden administration, as part of a deal that freed five Americans last month who had been imprisoned in Tehran, had sent to Qatar to be released to Iran for humanitarian purposes. Iran has publicly endorsed the Hamas attacks but denied involvement, and U.S. officials have said there was reason to doubt Iran was directly involved.

But Iran apparently did give Hamas a lot of help,  according to two articles (here and here) from MEMRI, which simply translates the Arab media  (h/t Malgorzata) Some quotes from Iranian and Hamas officials (go see the videos for yourself).

From senior Hamas official Ali Baraka:

“Our allies are those that support us with weapons and money. First and foremost it is Iran that is giving us money and weapons. There is also Hizbullah, and the Arab and Islamic people who are standing by us. There are countries that support us politically. Even Russia sympathizes with us. Even the Russians sent us messages yesterday morning. They sympathize with us. Russia is happy that America is getting embroiled in Palestine. It alleviates the pressure on the Russians in Ukraine. One war eases the pressure in another war. So we are not alone on the battlefield.”

Intro para below from MEMRI:

In an October 10, 2023 article titled “[Operation] Al-Aqsa Flood Is the Beginning Of The End Of [Israel’s] 75-Year Occupation,” the Iranian regime mouthpiece Kayhan stated that a plan for Israel’s destruction, formulated and organized by Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani and dictated by him to the commanders  of the resistance organizations just before his assassination by the U.S. in January 2020, has begun to be implemented. Kayhan in fact clarified that Khamenei was party to the plan and hinted twice that a great victory was on the horizon. The following is a translation of the article:

The significance is that, last year, the Leader [Khamenei] gave ‘the promise of the imminent conquest,’ and this year he gave ‘the announcement of the complete conquest,’ and Operation Al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas’s recent attacks on Israel[ is part of this imminent conquest.  This promise and announcement, along with the clarity and power of [Khamenei’s] statements and positions in this meeting [with leaders and ambassadors of Islamic countries] on the occasion of the Prophet [Muhammad’s] birthday, have profound significance and content, which strategists and analysts in the region and the world will take seriously.

, , . “First, this operation was unique in terms of the powerful planning and coordination between [Iran’s] resistance factions, [for] it was carried out in 30 minutes in an occupied area three times larger than the Gaza Strip [itself], so that, for several hours, all the countries and politicians [in the world] could do nothing but watch the events in silence. Hours later, reactions came from all over the world, which showed that the Zionist regime has no defense strategy whereas the resistance groups have a powerful offensive strategy.

I can predict with almost complete certainty that Hamas’s attack on Israel involved substantial help from Iran. We shall see.

*From the NYT: when you see the word “context” used in a headline like this, you know that they’re ultimately going to blame Hamas’s massacre on Israel:

*Some light news from the AP’s “Oddities” section. Grazer, a monstrously obese grizzly, has won the National Park Service’s Fat Bear Contest.

When it comes to packing on the pounds to survive an Alaska winter, this year’s undisputed champ is Grazer.

Grazer, also known as Bear 128 to the fans of Fat Bear Week at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, won this year’s contest, handily defeating Chunk 108,321 to 23,134 in the finals.

The annual contest, which this year drew more than 1.3 million votes from dedicated fans watching the bears live at explore.org, is way to celebrate the resiliency of the brown bears that live on the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which extends from the state’s southwest corner toward the Aleutian Islands.

Viewers of Alaska’s most-watched popularity contest are glued to computer screens all summer long to see which bears are stocking up the most on salmon. They then vote in tournament style brackets over the course of a week, advancing bears to the next round until a champion is crowned. Grazer took the title Tuesday.

According to Grazer’s biography on the Katmai website, the large adult female is often one of the fattest bears to collect salmon on Brooks River inside Katmai. Park officials call her “one of the best anglers” in the park, fishing day or night from many different parts of the river, even chasing down fleeing salmon.

Grazer is one of an estimated 2,200 brown bears that call Katmai home.

A true mama bear, she’s known to attack larger bears, even adult males, to ensure her cubs are safe. She’s used her skills to successfully raise two litters of cubs.

Look at this chonk!

(From the AP): In this photo provided by the National Park Service is Grazer, the winner of the 2023 Fat Bear Contest, at Katmai National Park, Alaska on Sept. 14, 2023. The park holds an annual contest in which people logging on to live webcams in park pick the fattest bear of the year. Grazer had 108,321 votes to handily beat Chunk, who has 23,134 votes, in the Oct. 10, 2023, finals. (F. Jimenez/National Park Service via AP)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili is prognosticating, and correctly:

Hili: Bad times are coming.
A: How do you know?
Hili: They are moving stealthily.
In Polish:
Hili: Idą złe czasy.
Ja: Po czym poznajesz?
Hili: Skradają się.

*******************

 

From Rick, a Dave Blazek cartoon:

 

Another funny piece from a newspaper:

And remember these old days? Let’s not bring them back again!

Masih weighs in on the Israel/Palestine conflict. I have very little doubt (and I do have some evidence) that Iran played a substantial role in helping Hamas:

From Titania:

From the Internet:

More of the same from Luana (I retweeted it).

From Simon, wbo says, “I don’t like her politics, but her hatred for trump is almost unbounded.”  I hadn’t heard Trump’s statements mentioned below.

From a reader:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a one-year-old boy gassed on arrival:

Tweets from Dr. Cobb.  Matthew thinks this is a person in a Chewbaccca suit, and I agree:

Matthew is concerned about British beavers, and said this:

Less leafy than I thought! Not sure what will happen when they successfully breed though – where will their offspring move to? Look at the map.

This is one of the weirdest plants I’ve ever seen. Read more about it here.

34 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day:
    54 – Roman emperor Claudius dies from poisoning under mysterious circumstances. He is succeeded by his adoptive son Nero, rather than by Britannicus, his son with Messalina.

    1269 – The present church building at Westminster Abbey is consecrated.

    1307 – Hundreds of the Knights Templar in France are arrested at dawn by King Philip the Fair, and later confess under torture to heresy.

    1775 – The Continental Congress establishes the Continental Navy (predecessor of the United States Navy).

    1792 – In Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid.

    1843 – In New York City, B’nai B’rith, the oldest Jewish service organization in the world, is founded.

    1881 – First known conversation in modern Hebrew by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends.

    1892 – Edward Emerson Barnard is first to discover a comet by photographic means.

    1908 – Margaret Travers Symons bursts into the UK parliament and becomes the first woman to speak there.

    1917 – The “Miracle of the Sun” is witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Portugal.

    1943 – World War II: Marshal Pietro Badoglio announces that Italy has officially declared war on Germany.

    1972 – Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes mountains. Twenty-eight survive the crash. All but 16 succumb before rescue on December 23.

    1976 – The first electron micrograph of an Ebola virus is taken at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by Dr. F. A. Murphy.

    1977 – Hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

    2010 – The mining accident in Copiapó, Chile ends as all 33 trapped miners arrive at the surface after a record 69 days underground.

    2019 – Kenyan Brigid Kosgei sets a new world record for a woman runner with a time of 2:14:04 at the 2019 Chicago Marathon.

    Births:
    1853 – Lillie Langtry, English actress and singer (d. 1929).

    1862 – Mary Kingsley, English explorer and author (d. 1900).

    1904 – Wilfred Pickles, English actor and radio host (d. 1978).

    1909 – Art Tatum, American jazz pianist (d. 1956).

    1921 – Yves Montand, Italian-French actor and singer (d. 1991).

    1924 – Terry Gibbs, American vibraphone player and bandleader.

    1925 – Lenny Bruce, American comedian and actor (d. 1966).

    1925 – Margaret Thatcher, English chemist and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2013).

    1934 – Nana Mouskouri, Greek singer and politician.

    1940 – Chris Farlowe, English rock, blues, and soul singer.

    1941 – Paul Simon, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.

    1947 – Sammy Hagar, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.

    1969 – Nancy Kerrigan, American figure skater and actress.

    1971 – Sacha Baron Cohen, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter.

    1971 – Billy Bush, American television journalist and radio host.

    1995 – Jimin, South Korean singer. [A member of the boy band BTS. British internet personality Oli London underwent 18 cosmetic surgeries costing up to £150,000 to resemble Jimin.]

    If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button:
    1687 – Geminiano Montanari, Italian astronomer and lens maker (b. 1633).

    1905 – Henry Irving, English actor and manager (b. 1838).

    1938 – E. C. Segar, American cartoonist, created Popeye (b. 1894).

    1945 – Milton S. Hershey, American businessman, founded The Hershey Company (b. 1857).

    1974 – Ed Sullivan, American journalist and talk show host (b. 1901).

    1979 – Rebecca Clarke, English viola player and composer (b. 1886).

    1996 – Beryl Reid, English actress (b. 1919).

    1999 – Michael Hartnett, Irish poet (b. 1941).

    2016 – Dario Fo, Italian playwright, actor, director, and composer Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1926).

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  2. Serious question – well not serious compared to the gravity of the news, but here goes.
    Is it correct to describe a bear that is fattened up for the winter as obese? (Clearly it’s an easy shorthand descriptor, and that’s likely how you meant it). Obesity, at least to my mind, is abnormal/excessive fat accumulation, and the bear is clearly very fat – but it will be thin by spring. So it’s neither abnormal nor excessive fat. A human in that condition, by contrast, would still be packing on pounds over Christmas. There should be some technical term for an animal that’s fattened up for hibernation, but I have no idea if there is one..

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      1. Yes, and obese would be appropriate. There is something to be said for cats living on a “catch your own” diet, at least in terms of keeping them lithe and apparently (per a vet I talked to) they don’t form urinary stones. An issue with many domestic cats. That being said, I had to kill a mouse in our basement myself a couple of weeks back. Damned thing wandered in to watch me exercise. Cats refused to get involved. My threats to cut feline rations were ignored.

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        1. We usually have lots of cats, only five at the moment but it is true about the interest for prey. There has to be the chase, the play and the torment, culminating in the kill but not always for the food, otherwise as you say, they are not interested and refuse to get involved. Obligate carnivore they are but always ready for an easy option.

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  3. I notice that in France and Germany the Government has banned all pro Hamas and Palestinian assemblies and protests and is detaining protestors. It is illegal also in the UK however despite calls for police action as far as I know nothing has been done to stop or limit these assemblies and very obvious antisemitic activity.
    Is it legal in the USA to blatantly support terrorist organisations and call for the death of Jews and the destruction of Israel?
    I am astounded that people can get so upset about transgender issues but when it comes to the issue of the Jews and Israel anything seems acceptable. Why as Douglas Murray asks, is Israel the only country on the planet expected to accept this and the barbaric rape and murder of its citizens and the destruction of its territory with magnanimity?

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  4. What exactly did Trump say? I would like to find out exactly what he had said. A quick search only got me short clips of him calling Hezbollah ‘smart’. Calling a terrorist organization smart is not that bad. He is not praising their actions. But I didn’t get to see the whole thing.

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    2. This is Trump’s way of expressing approval, just as he did with Putin and other dictators. He can’t just come out and say he supports Hezbollah without alienating some of the cult.

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    3. And people have speculated (I’m sure correctly) that Trump’s anger at Netanyahu is because he praised Biden for his speech and America’s support and Israel put up a huge banner/billboard on a Tel Aviv highway that says “Thank You, Mr. President” with a photo of Biden; supposedly the photos of this banner have been viewed by millions. That’s gotta burn a petty tyrant like Trump.

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      1. Trump is still pissed off because Bibi called Biden to congratulate him right after Biden was declared president-elect, while Trump was still trying to contest the election.

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        1. Trump falsely claimed Netenyahu was the first. However, the earliest known communication congratulating Biden for his win from Netenyahu, a 5am tweet, was published almost 12 hours after a host of other world leaders sent their congratulations. Those include Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who tweeted at Joe Biden and his VP Kamala Harris at 5.02pm Eastern Time. Others followed suit, including UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson at 5.29pm and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, at 6.02pm.

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  5. I don’t get that whole “…Palestine will be free” thing.

    Yes, they might be free from the Israelis, but actual freedom will not happen. They would be a theocratic kleptocracy. Consider that their last election was in 2006. Once they elected Hamas, Hamas no longer held elections. By whose definition of freedom does that constitute actual freedom?

    Also consider that, in their pursuit of an Islamic state, women will be as free in Palestine as they are in Afghanistan and Iran.

    Hamas just wants power, as all theocrats do. Using the word “freedom” is a con.

    L

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    1. Unfortunately so true. Women are not free anywhere Islam rears its head and exerts its influence, theocratic nation or not.

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  6. Is it legal in the USA to blatantly support terrorist organisations and call for the death of Jews and the destruction of Israel?

    Subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, all assembly and speech is lawful in the US so long as it is not “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is not “likely to incite or produce such action.” See Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) (emphasis added).

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    2. Ken.
      Thanks for the reply.
      Does this mean that “lawless action directed to inciting or producing action at a later time” is not lawful ?
      Also, Notwithstanding the “not likely to incite or produce such action” how does the law define “not likely”? Not likely over what timescale, hours, days, weeks, months?
      I am an Aerospace Design Engineer and if I had to define a “ not likely” component failure probability I would typically have to produce a Failure Mode Effect(s) Analysis, FMEA, to define the time scale probability for failure eg. probable, one hour or less, extremely improbable, 10 exp -9 hours. The “ not likely to incite or produce such action “ seems to me quite vague but then as I said I am an engineer and we typically do not do vague.
      Just asking.

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      1. Robert,

        The focus of the test under Brandenburg v. Ohio is on how imminent any violence is likely to be. Thus, if the speaker at a pro-Palestine campus rally were to espy Jewish students nearby and urge the crowd to “kick their ass” or “teach them a lesson” or words to that effect, the speech would not be protected from criminal prosecution under the Brandenburg standard. Similarly, if the speaker were to urge the crowd to go to the Jewish fraternity house on campus and lynch the people found there, that, too, would be unprotected under Brandenburg. The ultimate question under the US free speech standard is whether there is sufficient time between the incitement to unlawful action and the likelihood of the unlawful action for “good” speech to counteract the “bad” speech, under the theory that, given sufficient time, good speech will prevail over bad in the free marketplace of ideas.

        Under the standard that prevailed in the US through the first couple decades of the 20th century, the standard for permitted free speech was whether the speech at issue had a “bad tendency” that might manifest itself as lawless conduct at some future date. The US Supreme Court steadily backed away from that standard for approximately a half century before overruling it outright in the 1969 Brandenburg case.

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        1. Ken. Again thank you for the explanation.
          I can see why they backed away from “ bad tendency” clause and some future date to the 1969 case.
          It still must be difficult for law enforcement (police) to apply the statute in any situation where there is an animated gathering of anti anything with chanting and shouting etc, almost impossible I would suggest unless as you described it was blatantly obvious of the bad intention in the here and now. Pessimistically I find it difficult to believe that “good speech” ever prevails over hatred for the jews and Israel .
          Regards.
          Robert.

          Reply

          1. If, in the long run, good ideas cannot outcompete bad in the US’s free marketplace of ideas, then this experiment in republican democracy of ours is doomed.

            Antisemites make up a vocal minority of US Americans, but they are a small minority. The vast majority of Americans, Right and Left, reject anti-Semitism. And they always will, so long as the US marketplace of ideas remains free.

  7. Thanks for the map Matthew. When I saw the news item on Beavers being introduced to London I wondered if the good environmentalists had thought through the longer term impacts such as breeding in an environment with no natural predators. The sculptress Anna Hyatt Huntington introduced a species of deer that she thought was attractive to an urban park she created in Newport News, VA a number of years ago. With no natural predators..hunting is against the law in the city… other than the occasional Ford or Chevy, and the deforestation of land to build homes, the deer have fully invaded human occupied areas eating flowers and shrubs, tearing up yards and even romping through elementary school playgrounds while children are out. So whats the plan Beaver Trust? (Interesting name! Btw)

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  8. Re: students behaving badly.
    This reminds me of what happened in Germany after 1933. Here we have the leftists
    morphing into far rightists. It looks like in an atmosphere of stupidity, things can turn
    into their opposite.

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    1. Mike, I’m curious: are there any academics, national-level politicians, or major institutions on the “far right” in the Anglosphere who are either blaming Israel for the week’s atrocities or issuing mealy-mouthed statements excusing terrorists and Jew haters? Or did you mean to compare the leftists to those of the 1930s German far right?

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  9. And remember these old days? Let’s not bring them back again!
    As noted in my list, today is Billy Bush’s birthday.

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  10. People on a train in southwest Colorado may have spotted ‘Bigfoot.’ Thoughts?

    Poor alien. Heading back to Area 51 and the UFO gets a flat and it has to walk the last few miles.

    If UFOs get flats, do flying saucers get chips?

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    1. On American and other WEIRD* college campuses, of course.
      ———–
      * Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic.

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  12. I’m just hearing that 250 hostages have been rescued from an Israeli military post just outside Gaza that had been stormed by Hamas on 7 Oct. Multiple Youtube sites cite an IDF source but nothing confirmed yet. Fingers crossed.

    Nicholas Kristof is one of those people who wants to appear to support an action in principle but raises objections to every choice and therefore wants Israel to do nothing in practice.

    Kristof is also wrong: The best reason from Israel’s point of view to stay out of Gaza would be that urban combat exacts high casualties among one’s own soldiers. Civilian casualties are less relevant, actually, as if they have any sense they will flee — as they are now. If they stay, well, so much the worse for them. Israel’s probing into Gaza now instead of waiting for the siege to reduce the place means they are hoping to rescue hostages and are willing to take casualties from a more robust Hamas presence.

    As to civilians generally, picking a side helps stabilize one’s moral compass. Given that I have taken Israel’s side (for all the good that does), I have no problem valuing the lives of Israeli civilians above Palestinian civilians. All I hope is that civilian casualties are commensurate with legitimate military objectives such as the killing or capturing of Hamas combatants and the destruction of their infrastructure. If the IDF kills 100 civilians for every one that died in Israel this week — and rockets are still coming out of Gaza — that will be fine with me as long as Israel didn’t kill them just for the hell of it.

    Israel is going to be condemned no matter what she does. She might as well do her best to win.

    Reply

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