RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thespectator.com/topic/palestinians-plo-yasser-arafat-soviets/

It’s so cute when politicians like AOC and Rashida Tlaib, to say nothing of hysteric undergraduates and ill-informed lefties across the country, complain that Israel is an “apartheid state” that is illegitimately “occupying” the land West of the Jordan River from the Golan Heights down to the border of the Sinai Peninsula. 

Responding to the murderous attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7, AOC decried “the occupation of Palestine” while Tlaib urged “ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system” that can “lead to resistance.”

Hermeneuts of the world, unite! What does Tlaib mean by “resistance” here? Slaughtering innocent partygoers? Incinerating and beheading babies? Indiscriminately raping then murdering hostages? And what is the force of “lead to”? Is it meant to suggest that Israel is somehow to blame for such acts of “resistance” because — because why? Because the Jewish people occupy the place that was 1) their ancestral homeland and 2) with which they were reinvested by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, by the victorious Brits after World War One and and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, explicitly to provide a “national home for the Jewish people,” and 3) by the creation of the state of Israel in 1948?

What group of people do they think belongs there?  

“Palestinians” is the usual answer.  But who or what are the “Palestinians”?“People from Palestine,” you say.  But what is Palestine?

From time immemorial, Jews occupied the spot history knows as “Judaea.” What happened to that? Gibbon said that Hadrian, who ruled from AD 117 to 138, was one of the “five good emperors.”  Maybe so, but there is a reason that the Jews proverbially accompanied any mention of Hadrian with the imprecation, “May God crush his bones.” 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-aid-unrwa-united-nations-hamas-israel-45bfbfe?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

On Tuesday a blast at a hospital in Gaza City reportedly killed hundreds of people. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike. The Israel Defense Forces said it was a failed missile from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a local proxy of Iran. About a quarter of Hamas and PIJ rockets fired in previous wars have fallen short and landed in Gaza. More details will come, but blowing up a hospital isn’t in Israel’s interest.

Hamas courts Palestinian casualties, knowing that it can blame Israel whenever the aftermath of its misfired rockets or human shields ends up on the news. Hamas shows such little concern for Gazans that it has long stolen their humanitarian aid. It’s another way the terrorist group uses Palestinian civilians, playing on Western sympathy to advance its jihadist brutality.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as Unrwa, took to Twitter on Monday: “@UNRWA received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de facto authorities in #Gaza, removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agency’s compound in #GazaCity.”

But hours later something strange happened: Unrwa deleted its tweet and said nothing was amiss. “With regards to reports on social media of looting of an UNRWA warehouse,” it wrote, leaving out that the reports had been its own, “UNRWA would like to confirm that no looting has taken place.” The agency didn’t reply to requests for comment.

Unrwa can pretend it never said what it said, but U.N. sources told Israel’s Walla News that the aid was stolen, and Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians reports that 24,000 liters of fuel and medical supplies went to Hamas, whose underground bases use diesel generators.

Washington covers that tab. Since President Biden restored aid that was blocked by President Trump, the U.S. has been Unrwa’s largest donor, at $344 million in 2022.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/all-options-grim

On October 7, thousands of Hamas terrorists together murdered over 1,300 Israelis in villages near the border of the Gaza Strip. Most of their victims were civilians. Among their infamies, the terrorists torched the homes of families hiding in in-home bomb shelters, burning the families to death; they killed 260 partygoers at a music festival and raped many of the young women in attendance; and they took some 200 Israelis into captivity in Gaza, including toddlers and grandmothers. All told, Hamas was responsible for the largest and most horrific attack on Jews since the Holocaust ended in 1945.

Two days after Hamas’s murderous raids, Israel announced that it was shutting off the Gaza Strip’s water, gas, and electricity supplies. World leaders soon warned that the Israelis were creating an “untenable” humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while a European Union official condemned Israel’s “indiscriminate attack on civilians.” In response to American and international pressure, Israel partially restored the strip’s water supply.

What does the civilized world want Israel to do? Since the attack, Israel has launched thousands of air raids on Gaza, destroying key elements of Hamas military infrastructure. Meanwhile, Hamas showers the Israeli populace (that is, random civilian targets) with its own rocket attacks. Israel’s air power is far superior to Hamas’s, but Israel does not desire, and would not benefit from, a protracted rocket war. Israel left Gaza in 2005, and Hamas took over the strip from the Palestinian Authority through a violent coup in 2007. In the years since, Hamas has instigated conflicts with Israel in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021, launching intermittent rocket strikes to terrorize Israeli citizens in-between. The Jewish state’s response should be that of any normal country: to end its enemy’s ability to threaten it.

Israel has urged civilians to leave the northern region of the Gaza Strip, providing safety corridors to southern Gaza. Hamas leaders, however, have urged and sometimes forced Palestinians to stay in the danger zone, placing large obstacles on the evacuation roads; the IDF claims that Hamas explosives killed 70 fleeing refugees. These actions are in keeping with Hamas’s long-standing tactic of embedding its fighters within crowded civilian neighborhoods, resulting in the inevitable deaths of many noncombatants.

Regional actors such as Egypt (which refuses to open its borders to Gazan refugees) and superpowers like China have argued that Israel’s approach has shifted from one of self-defense to one of “collective punishment.” Human Rights Watch claims Israel’s response, and the sheer number of resulting Gazan casualties, will likely by itself constitute a war crime. Even the United States, whose government has been supportive of its ally, has cautioned Israel that it can’t tolerate excessive civilian casualties.

The Biden administration’s warning highlights the Jewish state’s precarious position. Absent a popular Gazan uprising against Hamas, Israel won’t be able to uproot the threat against it without incurring significant civilian casualties.

https://www.nysun.com/article/an-iran-proxy-islamic-jihad-turns-out-to-be-the-culprit-that-rocketed-a-christian-hospital-in-gaza-city-israel-defense-forces-conclude

In an indication that Hamas is winning the propaganda war a mere 12 days after committing the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Arab and Western leaders — and the New York Times — have quickly adopt the terrorists’ version of events that accuses Israel of killing hundreds of innocents in an air attack on a Gaza hospital. 

Hamas issued a statement Tuesday evening, declaring that some 500 people were killed and hundreds injured in an Israeli air attack on Al Ahali al Arabi, a hospital at Gaza City. Prime Minister Netanyahu then countered that Islamic Jihad rockets shot toward Israel were the culprit. 

Even before the Israeli version came out, the Hamas version was almost universally adopted as gospel. The Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, immediately left Amman, Jordan, where he was scheduled to participate in a summit with President Biden Wednesday, and declared a three-day period of mourning across the Palestinian territories.

Jordan then unilaterally announced that it will cancel the planned summit, which was designed to discuss humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians, Israel’s Channel 12 television is reporting. The Israeli embassy at Amman was besieged by hostile protesters. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and several other Arab countries immediately issued condemnations. American press outlets joined in. 

The Times led its website with the headline, “Israeli Strikes Hits Gaza Hospital, Killing 500, Palestinian Health Ministry says.” Like all other Gaza authorities, the health ministry is controlled by Hamas. 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20064/iran-helped-hamas-attack

The precise details of Iran’s direct role in authorising the attacks are gradually coming to light, with officials involved in the investigation insisting that both Iran and Hezbollah, the extremist militia it controls in southern Lebanon, were involved in the planning of the Hamas terrorist operation.

This is hardly surprising given the estimated $100 million a year Tehran gives Hamas to help develop its terrorist infrastructure, part of the £13.1 billion Iran has spent on developing its terrorist network throughout the Middle East during the past decade, from supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen to Shia militias in Iraq.

The true extent of Iran’s military support for Hamas was recently laid bare by the movement’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, when he revealed that funds received from Tehran had helped to fund the development of missile and defence systems designed and built in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The significance of Iran’s involvement with Hamas’s terrorist activity was also evident at the weekend when Haniyeh met with Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, in the Gulf state of Qatar, a country that also has a long history of funding Hamas.

The significance of Iran’s involvement with Hamas’s terrorist activity was also evident at the weekend when Haniyeh met with Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, in the Gulf state of Qatar, a country that also has a long history of funding Hamas.

Israeli warplanes have also been in action bombing airports in Syria which are used by Iran to transfer weapons and supplies to the network of military bases it has constructed in southern Syria.

The extent of Iran’s meddling in the current crisis in the Middle East should certainly serve as a wake up call to the US and its European allies about the danger the Iranian regime poses not just to the region, but the wider world.

With the Saudi negotiations now on hold, the US and its allies should accept the folly of trying to maintain a diplomatic dialogue with Tehran in the hope that the Iranian regime may be persuaded to sign up to a new nuclear deal.

As Iran’s open support for Hamas has demonstrated, the ayatollahs have no interest in reaching a peaceful accommodation with the West. They are only concerned with supporting groups that carry out unimaginable acts of violence against innocent civilians, and should be treated with the pariah status that they fully deserve.

https://bit.ly/3Qk6Cd6

Hamas’ anti-Western strategy

*Hamas was established in 1988, as a spin-off of the Muslim Brotherhood, as were ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Islamic Jihad, Boko Haram and scores of additional terror entities. The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest Sunni terror organization, haunting all pro-US Arab regimes, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Africa, Europe and the USA. Its strategic goal is to topple all national Muslim regimes, bring the Western “infidel” to submission, and establish a universal Muslim society.  

*Hamas, just like the Muslim Brotherhood, considers Israel as “an infidel” entity in “the abode of Islam,” a US beachhead in the Middle East and a deterring ally of all pro-US Arab regimes.

*The 1988 Hamas charter highlights the Quran as its constitution, Jihad as its path, and martyrdom as its loftiest tactic.  It urges the “believers” to kill Jews, as specified in Article 7 of the charter, quoting one of the Prophet Muhammad’s Hadiths (verbal teachings): “When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees, the stones and trees will say: O Muslims, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him….”

*Hamas is assisted, militarily and financially, by Iran’s Ayatollahs (as well as by Qatar and Turkey), who – just like the Muslim Brotherhood – perceive the war against the “illegitimate” Jewish State as a preview of their war on “the apostate” pro-US Arab regimes and “the infidel” West, with a focus on “the Great American Satan.”

*Hamas and other Islamic and Palestinian terrorist organizations have collaborated with enemies and rivals of the US and the West, such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc, Iran’s Ayatollahs, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and terror organizations in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/16/why-wont-the-jews-just-let-themselves-be-killed/

So let me get this right. If Israel bombs Hamas targets in Gaza, it is recklessly endangering civilian life. But if it gives civilians fair warning to move away from certain areas, it is engaging in ethnic cleansing. If it drops bombs in built-up suburbs, it is committing a war crime. But if it advises civilians to leave those built-up suburbs before the bombs come, it is also committing a war crime. If it attacks northern Gaza, that’s genocide. Yet when it tells the civilians of northern Gaza to leave first, that’s ‘forced transfer’, which is to say: genocide.

Everything Israel does is a war crime. Everything. Killing civilians – war crime. Trying not to kill civilians – war crime. Bombing populated areas – war crime. Giving a population time to leave before dropping bombs – war crime. The surrealism of these screams of ‘genocide!’ every time an Israeli soldier so much as picks up his gun was brought home by two headlines in the Independent last week, published just 10 hours apart. Israel is engaged in ‘collective punishment in Gaza’, claimed the first. ‘Israel accused of “trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza Strip” as one million ordered to evacuate’, said the second.

Got that, Israel? ‘Punish’ Palestinians and you’re a criminal. Do everything in your power to avoid ‘punishing’ Palestinians and you’re still a criminal. I’m starting to wish the Israel-haters would just say what they mean with their entire chest: ‘Let yourselves be killed, Jews. Don’t fight back. Don’t do anything at all.’

The twists in the public discussion of Israel’s military response to Hamas’s recent act of unspeakable barbarism have been extraordinary. It was predictable, given the Israelophobic myopia of the West’s cultural elites, that Israel would be damned the minute it took action against the neo-fascists who had just executed the worst act of anti-Semitic savagery since the Holocaust. All the usual accusations were made. Israel’s missile strikes add up to ‘collective punishment’. Israel is using ‘genocidal language’. It is committing ‘war crimes’. It is ‘breaking international law’. Etc etc. One is forced to wonder what kind of messed-up law prevents the victims of racist slaughter from pursuing their killers.

This time, what’s been most striking is that even Israel’s efforts not to hit civilians, not to ‘collectively punish’ Gazans, have been rebranded as war crimes. Consider its advice that the people of northern Gaza should evacuate their homes so that they won’t be injured or killed in bombings. This is being called ‘ethnic cleansing’. One Palestinian politician says it is further proof that Israel is waging a war of ‘annihilation’. This is linguistic contortionism of an Orwellian degree: in trying to avoid annihilating the people of northern Gaza, Israel is being annihilationist. War is peace, freedom is slavery, evacuation is annihilation. Ash Sarkar says the evacuation is a ‘Second Nakba’. Norway’s Refugee Council damns it as ‘forced transfer’, which – you guessed it – is a war crime. It must be. Israel’s doing it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-hamas-gaza-civilians-united-nations-1222797b?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

As Israel prepares for its likely ground invasion to pursue Hamas in Gaza, the world is warning about civilian casualties. The moral point to keep in mind as the fighting gets intense is that the responsibility for those casualties will lie with Hamas.

Israel has an obligation to do what it can to protect civilians, and it is doing so. It has warned Gazans to move to the south of the territory as it prepares its campaign. It is using precision-guided bombs when it can to target Hamas combatants rather than civilians. No one has a bigger strategic stake in reducing civilian Palestinian casualties than Israel given the propaganda fodder they provide its enemies.

Contrast that with Hamas, which gave no warning to the Israeli and foreign civilians it slaughtered on Oct. 7. Killing civilians was the explicit goal. Hamas has ordered Gazans not to flee, and its leaders hide weapons in hospitals, schools and mosques.

Israel built bomb shelters for its citizens. Hamas built a network of tunnels for its combatants but keeps its civilians above ground, where they can be used as human shields or casualties showcased on TV. It’s not too much to say that Hamas wants Palestinian casualties to stir an uprising on the West Bank and turn world opinion against the Jewish state.

Yet the United Nations and others criticize Israel more than they do Hamas. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has denounced Israel’s evacuation order but he says little about Hamas’s human blockade.