Here’s how I translate two phrases that we hear quite a bit these days about the Hamas/Israel war. The phrases are on the left, and how I hear them is on the right.
“Calls for Permanent ceasefire” = “Calls for Hamas to win the war”*
“Calls for Israel to leave Rafah alone” = “Calls for Hamas to win the war”*
*As per one of the comments below, it could also be translated as “Calls for the State of Israel to stop existing.”
A few days ago none other than President Biden issued the second mantra, saying this in his State of the Union message:
President Biden likes to say that no President has been a better friend to Israel, but of late he doesn’t sound like it. He beat up Israel’s leaders in his State of the Union speech, criticized its war strategy in Gaza with regularity, and on the weekend called Israel’s plans to clear Hamas from its last stronghold in the city of Rafah a “red line” that Israel shouldn’t cross.
“It is a red line, but I am never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there is no red line I am going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them,” Mr. Biden said on MSNBC. “But there’s red lines that if he crosses,” without finishing his train of thought, before adding “you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”
The clear intimation is that if Israel goes into Rafah (a necessity to destroy Hamas), the U.S. will still support Israel, but only to the extent that we supply rockets to keep the Iron Dome going. See the second mantra above.
********
As Richard Dawkins says, “Discuss.” Think of it as an essay topic.
Yesterday, I heard NPR announce that the USA was going to send material to Gaza to build a pier so that “aid could come from the sea” in addition to air and land.
All I could think was: Yes, much more efficient way to import rockets, arms, and ammunition.
I support Israel’s efforts to give all the Hamas members the martyrdom they profess to seek. As soon as possible.
If the US has ANY neurons (and I’m sure Israel will be advising on this), NO weapons or ammunition, or anything to build tunnels, will be allowed to cross that pier.
Hear, hear, Jim to your last paragraph. There’s still plenty of 7.95mm tickets to Paradise left in Israel’s travel office, I’ll bet.
UNWRA is supposed to be the liaison between our people and the people in Gaza. I don’t need to explain the problem with that.
I gather that it’s a floating pier, and my guess is that if the Navy(?) is building it, we’re going to be at least nearby protecting/watching over it.
Everything expressed concisely in those quotes is literally Herbert Marcuse’s fault – his repressive tolerance and “alchemy of the word” (in reference to art, vide infra).
One-Dimensional Man, Counterrevolution and Revolt (“alchemy” quote source), and perhaps more, have ideologically manipulated its readers and those under the literal spell of those readers to find “revolutionary potential” in the world based on Marcuse’s gnosis of how History works.
History with a capital H means a “scientific” study of the past, present, and end point of where History is supposed to go – and it goes dialectically.
Faith in dialectic is the core belief of a gnostic-hermetic cult religion.
I agree that a permanent ceasefire and failure to destroy the remaining four Hamas battalions in Rafah effectively means that Israel loses the war. But I like to think—perhaps naively—that the primary intent of those statements is to prevent civilian deaths. That said, Israel would lose the war *de facto,* which would allow Hamas inevitably to regroup and attack Israel again and again until Israel is no more.
It’s hard to say what the real motivations are for these now knee-jerk statements, but I think they may vary depending on who we’re talking about:
As for the Biden administration—which I believe wants Israel to win—Biden is trying to thread a needle here by speaking out of all sides of his mouth. First there’s a “red line.” Then there’s no red line. First Israel needs to stay out of Rafah until it has a plan to evacuate civilians. Then Israel has a right and obligation to render Hamas inoperative. The lack of clarity from the Biden administration (probably) reflects the competing priorities of keeping civilian casualties to a minimum while at the same time allowing Israel to eliminate Hamas for the benefit of the entire world. The equivocation is not helping!
As for the media, I think that many of the news outlets may indeed want to see Israel put in its place. It is small but it is powerful, and the media outlets seem not to be able to resist depicting Israel as a bully and a monster. This may be exacerbated by antisemitic impulses as well, but we don’t actually need to bring antisemitism into the mix because the power differential itself is enough to create media animus.
So, here we are. Israel needs to remove Hamas from power, and I hope it will do so.
“It is small but it is powerful, and the media outlets seem not to be able to resist depicting Israel as a bully and a monster.” In 1983 Bob Dylan wrote a masterful song, “Neighborhood Bully”, speaking directly to this…
It seems to me there is a simple solution. Hamas can simply surrender all the hostages and offer to stop fighting. I’m pretty sure Israel would be forced to back out with some kind of agreement. So, why is the world expecting Israel to surrender first? That makes no sense. Of course, if it is resolved, in 5 years or so, Hamas reestablished, the whole thing would repeat. But, that’s life.
+1
Here’s my translation:
“Calls for permanent ceasefire” = “Cries that everybody should just try to get along, how hard can it be?”
“Calls for Israel to leave Rafah alone” = “Look, you’re more dependable so I want you to be the one to stop it then everybody will just get along.”
I agree that the result of those phrases being implemented would be Israel losing the war. I also believe that there is a real hatred for not just Israel but Jews themselves motivating many of the people calling for ceasefire and protecting Rafeh. They want Israel to lose the war and the Jews to be homeless, harassed, and humiliated.
But a lot of people seem to suffer from the deadly combination of ignorance and a stubborn belief in good, moral, easy solutions. They don’t foresee Israel losing the war; they imagine a future where everyone has gotten it out of their system, made some compromises, and now they get along. We’re social animals who evolved to manipulate the small internal dramas of small families and groups: it’s our default mode. Get a large collection of ignorant, well-meaning people who echo the same “common sense” solutions and those solutions might sound like the Right Thing To Do even if you ought to know better.
I’m not sure then that the specific problems and participants in the Middle East are really motivating the peace proposals. I suspect they’re harder on Israel not necessarily because they think Israelis are to blame, but because they secretly expect more from them —the way you would from an older child verses a younger sibling having hysterics. You hone in on the combatant most likely to listen and do what you want.
+1 I especially like this: “…a lot of people seem to suffer from the deadly combination of ignorance and a stubborn belief in good, moral, easy solutions.”
Jerry, I agree with you on most things but this is not one of them. Netanyahu is destroying Israel. He is Israel’s 3rd worst enemy. (Hamas and Iran are #1 and #2.) The idea of destroying Hamas is fantasyland. Every Hamas soldier killed by the IDF will recruit two more from the citizens of Gaza. I like to think of Israel, and my fellow Jews, as the “good guys” but in this situation there are no good guys.
The question is, what is a realistic goal for Israel? “Destroying Hamas” is not one. It’s not well-defined, there’s no way to know when it’s achieved, and Hamas would in any case be replaced by something else, the same or worse.
On October 8 Israel had the goodwill of the entire non-Arab world. (OK, not Russia.) That is significant, and they have pissed it away. The antisemites are having a field day and Netanyahu has given them all the ammunition that they need. An immediate cease-fire is the best alternative. Permanent? Not necessarily, but Israel has to articulate to itself what a realistic goal and outcome would be. The Palestinians are not going away, and they too have human rights. If you or I were Palestinians living in Gaza there’s a good chance that we would tolerate Hamas as an alternative to Israel.
1. The Nazis were destroyed without being able to recruit two new Nazis each. The same happened with Al-Qaeda and ISIS. You were probably not alive during World War II, but there surely have been people who cried then that destroying the Nazis was fantasyland. Thankfully, responsible people didn’t listen to your predecessors.
2. Killing the leaders of Hamas, destroying their war machine and showing people from Gaza that they bet on the wrong horse may do such wonders as happened with Germany and Japan.
3. If you really knew what’s happening with the Arab world you would be surprised. Did any of the Arab countries sever relationships with Israel (of those that have those relationships, of course, and there are quite a few now)? Did oil prices go up in order to force the West to press Israel even further? Did you read any of those many articles in the Arab press condemning Hamas? I have a nasty feeling that the attitudes in the West (especially Western universities) are much more hostile towards Israel than they are in the Arab world.
4. Antisemites always have a field day when they see Israel vulnerable and especially when they see Jewish blood.
5. And being a “good guy” doesn’t mean that you accept being butchered which Hamas promised to do to Israelis. That’s why Hamas cannot survive. Being a good guy in such a situation means to kill as few civilians as humanly possible in an urban war with terrorists using human shields and tunnels. And this is what Israel is doing: according to real military specialists, the ratio of killed civilians to killed combatants is the lowest achieved ever by any army in any war.
6. Any other leader today in Israel would do exactly what Netanyahu is doing (some would do more), be it Gantz or Gallant or someone else. That’s what the majority of Israelis want.
7. And a quotation from Golda Meir: “If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”
Hear, hear!
Thank you for spelling out your good responses!
“Sometimes being despised is the better option.”
I am 100% in agreement with you. Thank you for your post.
Beautiful, Margorzata. Thank you.
Amen!
I just want to add my thanks, too. I particularly like the angle about no Arab countries severing ties. And I hear this mantra of how horrible Netanyahu is, but don’t understand what the basis is, other than echo chamber.
Also, if you have a link to any Arab press piece condemning Hamas, it could be useful to me.
“ealistic goal for Israel? “Destroying Hamas” is not one.”
Oh yes, it totally is. It is the only solution.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
I don’t have any clear idea of what’s running through Biden’s head when he says things like that. Our ally is at war trying to root out a fundamentalist death cult which attacked it and killed over one thousand of its citizens and kidnapped over 200. The civilian death toll in Gaza has been horrible since Israel began its counteroffensive, but relatively speaking, for an urban war, it is rather low. In fact, I’ve seen credible estimates that show Israel is killing roughly 1 civilian for every 1 Hamas fighter. Moreover, the total number of dead Palestinian civilians is likely overstated, as a form of propaganda and psychological warfare that Hamas is using to discredit Israel in the eyes of the West, which Biden should be sophisticated enough to understand and defend against. My guess is Biden’s aggressive tone toward Israel has something to do with thinking it will help him win Michigan in the general election, which has a large Muslim population that is displeased with the administration’s handling of the war and has threatened to defect to vote Republican if he doesn’t do better.
Here is a link to a twitter thread that exposes Hamas’s statistical deceptions regarding the death toll: https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1766906514982232202?s=61
I’m sorry for spamming, but I want to add one more comment before I go. My sense is that pro-Palestine supporters don’t actually want a ceasefire, or more accurately, an armistice. Rather, what they want is for Israel to be stoically inert when Hamas attacks it and not retaliate. They want a one-sided agreement where the Israelis can’t defend themselves, while the Palestinians can “resist the occupation” with freedom and impunity. So I think you’re right that calls for a ceasefire are actually calls for Israel to forfeit the war.
I think that Biden is tacking hither and yon to find just the right wind direction such that he sails in support of Israel while at the same time tilting toward those Democrats who seem (naively) to think that stopping the fighting is an unmitigated good. The President is trying to please too many constituencies and, as you rightly point out, he is also looking ahead to the November election.
I believe that Biden wants Israel to succeed, but his desire to be all things to all people is putting Israel at grave risk.
Yes, bad for Israel, but also I doubt his vacillation is effective politically. Why would anyone believe that Biden really supports them? I say write-off the left-wing of the party, and win over the moderates.
Okay a zag: in America, why are the defenders of Israel and the Jewish people so much quieter and less politically important to the Biden administration and other cultural sounding boards than supporters of the Palestinians and Hamas? Have most of the allies of Blue America adopted the oppressor/oppressed paradigm and decided Israel is a bully and the Palestinians are innocent victims of that bully? Or is there a large group of quieter Americans who support Israel but don’t sponsor or attend rallies, close down freeways, or get interviewed by the press? Will they still support Biden if he threatens to abandon Israel? I’m in that group myself and I’m on the fence. Can’t vote for Trump but won’t vote for any president who would betray our history and our commitment to support Israel. When push comes to shove, I hope Biden will choose an honorable place in history over placating vociferous activists to win a second term. What are the odds?
Dr. Coyne, for months I have sensed the hurt you (we …) have felt after the October atrocities and have waited for you to develop a more balanced view of the war, but I don’t think that will happen. You had once cited with derision that a source was running 8 out of 10 stories with a favorable Palestinian slant. You’re no doubt beating those odds on the Israeli side. We do not need another 30,000 dead Palestinians. The Israeli response has been outsized and tone deaf to international opinion. Entire neighborhoods are destroyed. Their approach is tantamount to war crimes. I appreciate that the Biden administration is softening their stance and recognizing that providing aid to Palestinians is needed. I recognize, of course, that it is in part political expedience, but right is right regardless.
More than 70 years of turmoil points to one thing; the status quo isn’t working. Hamas uses civilians as shields, yes. There is support for Hamas among some Palestinians, agreed. But killing thousands to get to hundreds isn’t right. They do need two states, Palestine needs self-rule rather than continuing as an open air prison, and Israel needs to invest far more in tactical approaches.
My response:
1. I am not the New York Times and required to constantly provide a “balanced” view of the conflict. I happen to be pro-Israel in this war and have my reasons for that–reasons that you should know if you had really read this website over time. Many of the arguments you make I’ve answered in earlier posts.
2. There are not hundreds of members of Hamas but thousands, along with many sympathizers. As you should know well, Israel took the humane response: going in on the ground at risk to their own soldiers so as to kill as few civilians as possible. As you should also know well, the proportion of dead civilians to dead Hamas members, which may approach 1 to 1, is much lower than that in other conflicts that the U.S. and others have engaged in. The ratio is not “outsized.” I believe that you’re also taking Hama’ss figures for granted.
3. Since when should Israel run its war policy by listening to what the world says? If it did so, it would immediately surrender and allow Hamas to take over Gaza again, in the meantime lifting the blockade. (By the way, Gaza is not a “open air prison”; it was given infrastructure by the Israelis and Israel moved the Jews out. It was an experiment in letting Palestine have its own “state”. It failed: they elected terrorists who killed off the previous regime and then coopted most of the humanitarian aid to build tunnels and provide for terrorists, as well as lobbing rockets at Israel and committing numerous terrorist attacks. A blockade of weapons and materials that could be used to make them was instituted in 2006, AFTER Hamas started committing acts of terrorism.) If that blockade is what you mean as an “open air prison”, it’s ludicrous.
The world hates Israel for an obvious reason: it’s a Jewish state and therefore not allowed to defend itself or win conflicts.
4. I disagree with you on war crimes, and so did the International Court of Justice. I wonder, by the way, why you’re not calling out Hamas for its VERY palpable war crimes, going far beyond October 7. What about their lobbing missiles at civilians for years?
5. The two-state solution is risible for all the reasons given above. What state would want, next door to them, a state committed to destroying Israel? For that’s what Hamas and more than half of Palestinian civilians want to see. No more Israel! What happened before and then during Oct. 7 tells us why. And, my friend, the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected a two-state solution. Repeatedly! So what makes you think that having a state will solve the issue? Gaza WAS a Palestinian state, and look what happened. It became a morass of terror with a government stealing all the humanitarian aid (and other money) to build terror tunnels. And of course that will happen again if any new “state” abuts Israel.
I have said all these things over and over again and yet people like you come over and make me say them again. It’s quite tiresome. I’m prepared to deal with new arguments but I guess some people cling strongly to the old ones.
Well, I’ve answered you, so the discussion is through. By the way, your last paragraph could have been taken right out of NPR. “They need two states.” Like my tuchas they do! When the dust has settled and terrorists no longer rule the land, THEN they can talk about two states.
+100%
The roughly 1:1 ratio of civilian to combatant Palestinian deaths seems to be pretty typical for wars. It’s in the same ballpark as (to take two very different examples) the Vietnam war and World War II.
I don’t see how a two-state solution could work well. But I don’t see how any other solution could work well either. If half the Palestinian population wants Israel wiped off the map and its inhabitants massacred, then for sure a Palestinian state wouldn’t be a desirable neighbour for Israel to have. But for the exact same reasons Israel wouldn’t want those people to be living in Israel. And for the exact same reasons Israel wouldn’t want them being the inhabitants of some other state right next door. So what’s the alternative?
I mean, obviously what any reasonable person wants is for those Palestinian people to stop wanting Israel wiped off the map, but I haven’t heard a credible plan for making that happen and it’s not obvious to me that what Israel is doing right now is very likely to make Palestinians feel better about Israel and its inhabitants.
You could try to make it no longer true that half the Palestinian population wants Israel destroyed by killing that half of the Palestinian population. But (1) there are some possible objections to this on moral grounds, and (2) I have some guesses about how the remaining half of the Palestinian population would feel about Israel after doing that.
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems clear to me that every option here is terrible, and when every option is terrible there’s no valid inference from “this option is terrible” to “we shouldn’t prefer this option”. It could be that (1) a two-state solution is a terrible option but also (2) a two-state solution is still a less terrible option than all the other terrible options.
Maybe it’s not. Maybe there _is_ a much better option. But to date, I’ve seen a lot of “I wish people would stop calling for a two-state solution, because it’s a terrible option” and not so much of “here’s another option that’s actually better and why”. Jerry, should you happen to be reading this, what option would you prefer and why do you think it would be less terrible than having a separate Palestinian state? (Which, to be clear, I agree would be terrible.)
Sometimes the status quo is the best you can do, leaving the “problem” unsolved. Not all problems have solutions. Periodic war that Israel can be sure of winning with acceptable (to her) casualties is not a bad price to pay for national survival in a region full of hostility to her people. It doesn’t matter how much Palestinians love or hate Jews or blame them for their plight. It is only necessary that they can’t defeat Israel. In a world order where slaughtering all your implacable enemies is just not done anymore, not by white (-adjacent) people, anyway, holding them off and hanging their incipient rebel leaders is not a bad second-best.
There is no reason why Israel should agree to a Palestinian state. She would get nothing out of it. Israel has no veto over such a state in Gaza unless she occupies it. As long as she occupies Judea and Samaria, statehood cannot happen there unless the Palestinians rebel successfully or foreigners invade it, conquer it, deliver it to the Palestinians, and expel the Jews.
Status quo isn’t really the right term because it is a contraction of status quo ante and therefore describes the state of affairs before October 7, which we can’t go back to. What I think what we actually have (or will have once Israel has finished in Gaza) is a Pareto equilibrium in which everyone, on average, is as well off as he can be without making anyone else, on average, worse off. If perturbed, a Pareto equilibrium will tend to restore itself. Pareto equilibria aren’t necessarily “fair” or “just”. They are just stable, which in war and peace is a good thing. What we are seeing is probably the best anyone can do.
Well put.
(I wasn’t meaning my use of the term “solution” to imply something that actually solves all the problems — I think everyone understands that that’s not happening any time soon.)
OK, so your preferred let’s-not-call-it-a-solution is that things carry on much as they have been, with thousands of Jew-hating Israel-hating Palestinians living in territories occupied by Israel and resenting it, and thousands of Israelis living in fear of being attacked by those people, and constant outbreaks of terrorism and war. I agree that it may not be possible to do any better than this. But I hope it’s also clear that it’s a pretty lousy outcome!
Again, it may well be better than anything a “two-state solution” could realistically deliver. (It’s not at all obvious to me whether it is.) But it seems pretty clear to me that it’s in the same ballpark of lousiness, and you can’t pick one over the other just by saying “the other one is a lousy outcome”. They’re both lousy. Picking the least-lousy outcome needs more work than just saying “this one is lousy”.
I’m just going to throw out that the only reasonable way to achieve a two state solution is not one the world would accept.
The only feasible path to a two state solution is a long term occupation during which all education and governance is either administered or at least supervised by Israel. All security forces would have to come from Israel or the US. All security, judicial, and government functions would be handled by the either Israel (or coalition of Israel and the US).
It cannot look like Afghanistan where the idea was to turn it over to the locals immediately because the local sentiment is not in favour of either tolerance or peaceful co-existence. The only thing I can think of that would work is a supervised rebuild that takes 20-30 years during which there is a concerted effort to deradicalize the population and mandatory schooling in which values of tolerance and acceptance, as well as a proper history (rather than the narrative that the Palestinians are victims of evil Jews) are taught.
I just do not see a path forward for a Palestinian state in anywhere like the short term. It would just be another haven for terrorists and would try its best to make continual war on Israel until they succeed enough to warrant another response like we’re currently seeing. Then we’re right back where we are now.
Edit: I should also say that if at the end of 20-30 years the population is still full of hate and wants to wipe out Israel then Israel just shouldn’t leave. They should continue to be in charge of governance and security.
100 % PCC(E)
D.A.
NYC
I an a 92-year old flaming atheist and have little use for Israel or any religion. However, my genetic history pulls me back to my Jewish ancestry and persecution for the first time since the Nazi era in Germany. We are back 100 (or more) years ago when envy or fear of the “other” was tolerated and propaganda was invented. As a US citizen for 70 years, my early belief that the U.S. could do no wrong was punctured some many years ago. Thank you, Malgorzata for telling it like it is.
Although I despise all religions, I do not think all are equal. Some actually do good. But any death–worshiping and martyr-encouraging ones are pure evil and need to be destroyed.
I don’t mean to pile on. Maybe this is unfair because the host has indicated the discussion is over. I just think there are some rhetorical language issues here to point out, for educational purposes. I’m not going to dispute Mr. Boone’s views, (which would tempt a response) just point out logical errors. If that violates Da Roolz, please do delete this post. I think they are important beyond the views themselves.
1) “We don’t need another 30,000 dead Palestinians.” If those 30,000 Palestinians are Hamas fighters (in uniform and out) or civilians militarized one way or another who are standing in the way of Israel’s legitimate military objectives that, to Israel, are “worth” those 30,000 whose sparing would fail to take the objective, then Israel does need them dead. And dead they can be made. So says the Geneva Conventions, which are the international law of war. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, that’s just the law. Of course you may disagree that dismembering Hamas and grinding it into little pieces is a legitimate military objective. Fine. Take a side. But Israel can take a side, too.
2) “Outsized and tone deaf to international opinion.” Jerry has already dispensed with international opinion. “Outsized” is disposed of by the proper reading of the “proportionality” requirement I’ve alluded to in 1). “Proportionality” is not something that can be objectively described as “outsized” by someone who is not a party to the conflict. The warring party must itself determine if the military objective is important enough to justify the number of civilians who die. Whether that number is 10 or a million is beside the point. Yes, if you absolutely must take this objective no matter what, then no number is “outsized”. That’s the law.
3) “Tantamount to war crimes”. People use tantamount when they mean that they know that A is not B but they would like people to think that A really is B, when it’s not. A good rule of thumb is to replace “tantamount to” with “not”. Then your sentence becomes, “Their approach is not war crimes.” (You’re welcome.)
4) You use “need” four times in ways that I don’t understand. Do you mean a biological necessity, like green plants needing water and sunshine, or do you mean a moral obligation on someone else to provide it to you out of their resources?
-Why is aid to Palestinians “needed”? Why can’t their government feed its own people with all that aid money they’ve received lo these many years?
-Why do Palestinians “need” two states and self-rule? A state is something you fight for and can hold, and collect taxes in, in the face of resistance from the power that currently holds the land you want to make your state in. No one gives you a state just because you say you “need” one. Lots of “nations” would like self-rule. Unfortunately this usually causes great dislocation in the sovereign state that currently rules the territory you want to rule yourself, especially when you want to make laws in your self-ruled state that are incompatible with the happiness and well-being of the state you want to wrest control from. So most people who say they “need” self-rule won’t ever get it. (The reason they are being ruled by others is because they couldn’t rule themselves.)
5) Finally I don’t know what you mean by “tactical approaches” and why Israel needs — there’s that “needs” again — to invest far more in them, whatever they are.
I would like these words to be catalogued as “tells” that the speaker is trying to make us think something is a fact to be used in a premise when it is “in fact” a contestable opinion. They are all examples of begging the question.
Leslie, as I have been alternating this week between flu-induced shaking and sweats, I really NEEDED that smile! Thank you for that.
+1
Leslie, thank you; excellent comment. I would add that the “Government” of Gaza, i.e. Hamas, is incapable of governing (that’s obvious) and DO NOT want to govern, the objective of Hamas is chaos, not just in the region, but globally. The aid they received (for decades) went to building “terror tunnels”.
I believe that aid to the people of Gaza is warranted, *and* Egypt, Jordan as well as other Arab nations in the region need to accommodate Gazan refugees; theses nations *categorically* refuse to do so. Why is there no chagrin directed by the “world community of pseudo moralists” at these (other) nations?
Israel cannot accommodate refugees; most bear a deeply held hatred and antipathy toward the nation. No logical/thoughtful person can propose that Israel take in Gazan refugees.
Israel is fighting for its life AND fighting a proxy war on behalf of the west.
The elimination of Hamas and the future of the region cannot be dictated by the US or any other nation; it must be dictated by Israel. And only Israel.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he has his own red line: that Oct. 7 never happens again.” FDD.
This is a good peice:
“Hamas Warns Gazans Against Cooperating With Israel on Aid Delivery”
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/12/hamas-warns-gazans-against-cooperating-with-israel-on-aid-delivery/
If a temporary ceasefire is arranged to perhaps release hostages (like last time) and to get food aid into Gaza, does Hamas still benefit from this? If Hamas during that time Hamas fires one rocket then the ceasefire is over.
Yes, Hamas potentially benefits from any aid – the majority of the population in Gaza view Hamas favorably (though that may be changing as the war continues) ergo, it’s very likely that there are underground networks funneling aid (intended for the people) to Hamas operatives.
The problem is that the UN is STILL “employing” UNRWA to distribute the aid.
More here from Eylon Levy about the aid also… “acts of violence …. including necrophilia”.
https://youtu.be/DTDkQGc1vu4?si=5HtSZxxC3MA2SWBB
I think the Palestinians deserve as much attention as the world gives to the Uyghurs.
I would like to see less attention afforded Palestinians
Biden is a political creature, trying to appease the far left of his base. The “Red-Line” comment is just stupid, as it was when used by other presidents in earlier conflicts. Biden is just showing his weakness. Just another reason that I wish we had another choice as democrats.
There will never be another long cease fire, as Israel is not that stupid. The terrorists know that most of them will be dead soon, and hostages are all they have. I’m guessing that there are many fewer than 100 hostages left alive.
+1
It may be the case that non of the hostages are alive, including American hostage.
Biased in favor of Biden as I am, I give him a pass for the lip service and “respect” he gives to Hamas, or the Pals: the left and right don’t see a difference between the two. At first blush there isn’t.
In reality there isn’t either (any difference, look at the 80-90% in favor of 10-7 etc.)
Hamas REPRESENTS, exactly and perfectly, the entire disfunction of “Palestine”. There’s no “Peaceniks” in Gaza/WB. To take their moral claims seriously, either historically or immediately, demeans us.
Or are there (Pal Peaceniks)? Can you cite me one in any serious position of power?
Go ahead…. I’ve got time…..
Biden has to keep on side people who don’t understand the above, WON’T understand the above, virtue signal to that effect or are so bad at logic and evidence they really believe it. That’d be: Friendly Arab gvts, woke dems of the retardarati, Michigan Arab voters.
I think (HOPE!) that in his mind he knows: “Hamas, and even the broader Pal movement is a genocidal jihad hate movement devoted only to the Large Pogrom. Not everybody knows/thinks that… So I must pretend to play both sides…”
I get that.
I’d DO that.
Make all the right “Two state…. regular Pal people, religion of peace*, victims of Gaza” nonsense noises.
All the while knowing: I’m lying of course, but that is necessary to win the day for Israel.
Or Israel dies.
Keep dancing that complicated dance, Pres. Biden, and onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
*while I wet my pants laughing at THAT.
+1
I have a much harder time giving Biden a pass.
Having said that, thank you for an insightful comment.
Hamas still holds 134 hostages, including 6 Americans. Many of those 134 are probably dead by now. Anyone calling for a ceasefire or making Rafah off-limits without also calling for the immediate release of all hostages is a supporter of terrorists.
+100%
+1
Absolutely.
Agreed!
I was only 9 when it happened, but I don’t remember anybody rooting for “both sides” against Ayatollah Khomeini re the US Emb hostages in 1979.
It concerns me now that that is no longer an issue.
For “resistance” civilian hostages, citizens of a democracy and an ally, aren’t important anymore?
Resistance by jihadists who have been killing their own and their neighbors for 3 decades?
Where is your moral compass?
They’re important to ME, and my fellow US cits, to civilized people, who believe in right and wrong.
D.A.
NYC
+1
Thank you David.
There’s a global deterioration of perspective and moral clarity.
Sri-Lanka (where I was born) used to be a hotbed of terror; the LTTE (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) institutionalized the strategy of suicide bombing. Over multiple years of rampant violence, the civil war in Sri-Lanka claimed thousands of lives.
“After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end. Up to 70,000 had been killed by 2007. Immediately following the end of war, on 20 May 2009, the UN estimated a total of 80,000–100,000 deaths.” – Wiki.
As a young girl in Sri-Lanka, I was directly threatened by the agents of terror. It is a surreal and terrifying experience to be subject to incoherent violence and to know that a few seconds can govern whether one lives or dies – violently.
To escape the war, my family and I emigrated to the west, Canada and the US gave us a safe home; I am today and will always be grateful for the opportunities offered by the West. Western civilization must be treasured and protected, specifically it must be guarded against terror and its precursor, radicalism.
Living with and surrounded by terror is unthinkable. No nation can survive it. In the end the Sri-Lankan government (at the time), eliminated the threat by harsh and targeted action, there were no smart bombs, the north was essentially obliterated. Was this optimal? No, it wasn’t. Was it necessary? Yes. Often, there are NO optimal solutions to conflict, sometimes there are NO solutions at all.
Israel is surrounded by those who want to rape, murder, mutilate and vaporize its citizens. It has no choice but to go the distance; it must ensure an “Oct 7th” never happens again; the latter is the only logical solution. There can be no two state solution with Hamas still active in Gaza.
“Israel believes that Hamas’ top commanders are hiding, and holding an unknown number of hostages, in miles of underground tunnels between Khan Younis and Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, which sits along the Egyptian border.”
-FDD
“Washington and Saudi Arabia could put pressure on Egypt to open its border and allow for temporary tent cities to be established in the Sinai.
The Saudis could finance this with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees coordinating aid.
This would be the easiest way to minimize civilian harm, yet Biden chooses to pressure Israel into a Hamas victory instead of threatening American aid to Cairo if Egypt doesn’t comply.
In the face of Egyptian intransigence, Israel is reportedly planning to establish 15 sites with medical field clinics across the southwestern part of the Gaza Strip.
It did everything possible to enable civilian evacuation in every other major city where it defeated Hamas — and it will surely do the same in Rafah.
A recent poll found 75% of Israelis from across the political spectrum support completing the takedown of Hamas in Rafah.”
-FDD
** Biden should draw red lines for Hamas — not Israel ***
=====================================
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he has his own red line: that Oct. 7 never happens again.
With 34 Americans dead and six held hostage, that should be America’s red line, too.”
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/11/biden-should-draw-red-lines-for-hamas-not-israel/
Americans (and others) need to grow just enough fortitude to understand that in war, the ONLY choices are between suboptimal solutions.
Thank you, Rosemary. I didn’t know any of your story. I am moved.
Leslie,
Thank you. ❤️
There are plenty translated by MEMRI into English. If you just type memri.org a page with articles will open. There are short descriptions of every one and they will give you the idea which one to open. The latest one (3/11) has a description: “Saudi Journalist: October 7 Caprice Brought Destruction Upon Gaza But Hamas Leaders Will Surely Declare Victory Again.” Sorry for answering so late but I didn’t see your comment until now.
Biden heartlessly and mindlessly sold out Ukraine, and is trying to do the same with Israel. Frankly, he is so horrible that I am no longer terrified of the alternative.