RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/30/israel-is-demonstrating-how-deterrence-works-in-the-middle-east/

Israel has taken these extreme measures to defend its nation and people against existential threats to its security since last October. It has often acted alone and over the objections of its allies.

As threats to Israel have increased from all sides since the horrific October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack and the United States, under the weak leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, has become a problematic ally, the Israeli government has done what it had to do to protect its nation—establish Israeli deterrence.

This was dramatically demonstrated in the early morning hours of August 25, when about 100 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fighter jets conducted a preemptive strike in Lebanon to destroy thousands of rocket launchers and a large number of drones that the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah planned to fire a few hours later against Israel.

Hezbollah scaled back its planned attack after the Israeli strike and reportedly did not fire dozens of high-precision missiles because it feared “the Israeli retaliation would be so forceful as to start a far longer and more devastating conflict than the past 10 months have seen,” according to the Times of Israel.

Just as dramatic was an Israeli missile attack on April 19, 2024, that destroyed missile radars deep inside Iranian territory and near a critical facility believed to be engaged in nuclear weapons research. The attack was in retaliation for an April 13 attack on Israel by Iran with a salvo of about 150 missiles and 30 drones. The U.S., U.K., and Jordan assisted Israel in shooting down almost all of these projectiles.  The handful of missiles and drones not shot down did no serious damage.

Although the Israeli attack against Iran did minor damage, it humiliated the Iranian regime because its military forces were unable to detect or intercept the Israeli missiles and drones. The Israeli attack also demonstrated the vulnerability of Iranian military, government, and nuclear sites to Israeli attacks and Iran’s inability to protect them.

https://www.jns.org/the-high-cost-to-the-hostages-of-enlightened-hypocrisy/

The argument over whether there’s such a thing as too high a price to pay for the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza continues to rage in Israel unabated. And “rage” is the right word to describe what is rarely a serious discussion on the part of the “Bring Them All Home Now” advocates.

Those whose family members are still languishing in the Strip can be forgiven for seeing the issue from a prism of personal pain. Still, not all the captives’ loved ones agree with their more vociferous counterparts that the government should cave in to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s demands in order to seal a deal that would put an end to the 11-month nightmare.
The latter group grasps that it’s not so simple. In the first place, Sinwar hasn’t consented to free all the hostages, including if Israel withdraws all troops from Gaza and leaves him in power to repeat the atrocities of Oct. 7 “again and again and again,” as his henchmen have vowed to do.
Second, the hundreds of bereaved families of soldiers who fell in this war to defeat Hamas and rescue the hostages are desperate not to have all that loss be in vain. Ditto for the men and women in uniform risking their lives every day in the same pursuit.
The people who deserve no sympathy are the ones who’ve been exploiting everyone’s devastation to fan the flames of the pre-Oct. 7 protests aimed at ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition. Indeed, their cynical abuse of the hostage crisis to further a political agenda that got upstaged by the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is nothing short of despicable.
Since the bulk of the Hebrew media has been complicit in this effort, it’s often difficult for members of the public to make a distinction between rational debate and “anybody but Bibi” hysteria. Occasionally, though, the disingenuousness gets exposed—and it’s a doozy.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/israel-launches-major-operation-against-irans-west-bank-proxies/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_

I’ve been contending that, rather than launch a major war it would lose in devastating measure, Iran has been conducting calibrated operations against Israel — trying to terrorize, exhaust, and effectively contract the territory of Israel by a thrum of violence on multiple fronts, knowing the Biden administration’s obsession about avoiding “escalation” of the conflict constrains Israel’s response.

The latest hot spot is Judea and Samaria — the West Bank, in which 3 million Palestinians are governed semiautonomously by the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas (now in the 19th year of his four-year term), and where jihadist Iran backs such proxies as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas (which controls Gaza but maintains a foreboding presence in the West Bank).

Israel has now commenced major combat operations against these jihadist strongholds. On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces deployed hundreds of troops, supported by air power, in an effort to dismantle terror platforms.

To recap, on October 7, Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza in the southwest, where it has been supplied via Egypt and where the fighting continues. Within 24 hours of Hamas’s attack, Hezbollah stepped up strikes across Israel’s northern border from its bases in Lebanon, where Iran has supplied it with over 150,000 missiles, thanks in part to Iran’s long-standing presence in neighboring Syria, propping up the barbaric Assad regime. In the interim, from over the southeast horizon, Israel has been subjected to continuous aerial aggression — hundreds of attacks — by the Houthis, Iran’s proxies in Yemen.

Concurrently, Iran has been turning the West Bank into yet another front, this one on Israel’s east, capitalizing on weapons-smuggling routes through Jordan. The Long War Journal reports that at least nine terrorists were killed in fighting that surged on Monday, with IDF forces “dismantling explosives planted under the roads, and confiscating large quantities of weapons.”

https://mailchi.mp/dd9d88d97a17/israel-current-events***

In incredible twists of irony that would even shock Jewess Alanis Morissette, Israeli forces rescued an Israeli Muslim Arab hostage this week from a Hamas tunnel in Southern Gaza. Why Hamas took this guy hostage in the first place is anyone’s guess. And he’s not the only one. There are still more Arabs being held. Farhan al-Qadi, from Rahat in the Negev and married to two wives with a slew of kids, was reportedly treated very similarly to the Jewish Israeli hostages. How woke of Hamas – no Arab privilege. 

The actual details of the rescue remain somewhat murky, but I would like to offer my own suggestion. In a recent misguided campaign, certain elements within the Haredi community began generating messages about their opposition to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Jewish prayer activity on the Temple Mount – IN ARABIC! This is not the first time in history that folks have thought that potential Jew killers would spare them if they were the “right kind of Jews”.  Well, you communicate in Arabic and G-d answers you with Arabic. Very fortunate for our Bedouin friend Farhan. 

Obviously Mr. Al-Qadi speaks Arabic, so there are hopes that much intelligence about other hostages and Hamas will be gathered from him. Intelligence gathered from a captured terrorist led this week to the recovery of the body of an Israeli soldier killed on Oct. 7th. Sgt. Shaked Dahan, hy’d, was killed while fighting the terrorists from his tank that was stationed near the Jewish community of Nir Oz. 

Despite what leftist defeatist propaganda would have folks believe, Israeli forces are making serious headway in Gaza.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20908/iran-war-israel-west-bank

Armed and funded by Iran, the “battalions,” whose members are affiliated with PIJ, Hamas and the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, began operating in the northern West Bank more than three years ago.

“Iran seeks as a strategic objective to surround Israel with a crescent of active fronts maintained by Iran and supported by Islamist client militias. As part of this, the [Iranian] regime is seeking to find a way to add an eastern component to this crescent – through Jordan to the West Bank… Tehran has succeeded in establishing and maintaining an arms route in which military materiel, brought from Iran into Lebanon, is then transported across the Syrian-Lebanese border, via Jordan, into the West Bank. “The maintenance of this route is of strategic importance to Iran. It is intended, over time, to flood the West Bank with weaponry, and by so doing, to eventually make this area a third front in the ongoing long war against Israel.” — Jonathan Spyer, journalist, expert on radical Islamic groups, Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2024.

The PA’s failure to crack down on the “battalions” means that Iran now has a small army in the West Bank. It will not be long before members of this army attack Israel in the same way as the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel, in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered, with many raped, tortured and burned alive. In addition, more than 240 Israelis, including babies, women and the elderly, were abducted to the Gaza Strip, where 109 of them are still being held as hostages.

Those who persist in advocating for the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel must take into consideration that doing so would lead to the rise of more Iran-backed “battalions” in the West Bank and other areas over which the PA is given control. Since the gunmen are frequently praised as “heroes” by many Palestinians, neither Abbas nor anyone who replaces him would have the courage to take them on.

Even if Abbas does go back to the Gaza Strip, it is not probable that he would be able to confront Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups there. As in the West Bank, new “battalions” and militias will no doubt spring up in the Gaza Strip under Abbas’s PA to pursue the Jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-gaza-end-game/

Tony Blinken is back in Israel for his ninth visit since 10/7. I wish I had his frequent flyer points.

Humor has always been a part of warfare. In order to endure oftentimes unspeakable experiences or images, people sometimes need to find a way to laugh. There is a story of British warships preparing to engage a German U-boat wolfpack in the Battle of the Atlantic. A submarine commander messaged his destroyer counterpart that in the event of engagement with the enemy, he would plan to stay on the water surface. The destroyer captain dryly responded, “So do I (meaning not get sunk).”

The Gaza war has also intertwined some jokes and laughter along with the pain, tears, and suffering. Very early in the war was the “Lego Gaza City” set with all gray parts heaped in a huge mound—just like the real thing. There was the UberEats type delivery soldier bringing food on a bicycle to his comrades in a destroyed building in Khan Yunis. And who could forget the soldier who knocked on the door of a house in Gaza to no answer. When he moved away the camera showed that nothing but the door was left to the entire building. While rockets and drones were actively on their way from Iran, one fellow put up a short video. He begged the Iranians to attack the “Jewish holy sites” as he showed on a detailed map of Israel. Each site was a branch office of the Israel Tax Authority.

As Tony Blinken once again returns to Israel, the question is what is the endgame? Hamas kidnapped so many Israelis—both live and dead—in order to use them as their strongest bargaining chip in finishing off the war. I do not believe that Yahya Sinwar or anyone else in Hamas expected the war to go as it has, with tens of thousands of Gazans dead, many of them Hamas members. I don’t think that they expected the massive levels of destruction that have led to thousands of buildings being destroyed and many thousands more being in need of dire repair before anyone will use them again. I doubt that they expected Israel to easily grab the Philadelphi Corridor on the Egyptian border and thoroughly flatten Rafah as Israel has done.

Hamas ostensibly should be like Germany or Japan and simply say yes to whatever is offered to them. They—as the Palestinians always have—are certain that they are the victors. They “demand” (like a guy with a gun facing him “demanding” something) that Israel stop fighting, remove all troops and give Rafah back to Hamas for more weapons running. While the Saudis seem to have unlimited oil, the Palestinians seem to have unlimited chutzpah. Israel is supposed to just get up and leave Gaza as if nothing happened on 10/7 or thereafter during which over 300 Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting in Gaza. Hamas, or what’s left of it, is delusional. They want to go back to the 6th of October with a slightly less valuable real estate portfolio.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/the_gaza_pier_debacle_it_s_worse.html

On July 14th, in The pier to nowhere is going away, I wrote:

When what’s left of the pier is finally removed and probably, scrapped, we can be certain, just as with the withdrawal debacle in Afghanistan, the MMPA will declare it a brilliant success and an example of the military acumen and inspired leadership of Joe Biden. Interestingly, at his recent NATO conference, Biden sort of allowed the pier wasn’t as successful as it could have been.  And like that disaster, we’ll never know the true financial and human cost.

The horror of it is Israel has ports that could have been used far more safely to offload supplies, but then the MMPA couldn’t brag about their stunningly successful relief efforts. As always, our troops suffer to enable feckless political stunts, but at least Joe got his photo ops.

Graphic: X Screenshot

Since then, the media, and the Harris/Biden Administration–Joe Biden, vanishing POTUS—have ignored the unfolding debacle. The pier, badly damaged and sort of repaired, supposedly has been dismantled, and multiple US Army(?) ships are in little better shape. Earlier reports indicated those ships had substantial difficulty, so poor was their mechanical condition, even getting to the Middle East. Now it appears they’re no longer able to return to America under their own power. 

Roughly seven months after setting sail for the US military’s troubled temporary pier mission off the Gaza coast, three US Army boats are expected to have to be hauled back to the US by contracted civilian vessels behind schedule, raising more concern about the state of the Army watercraft at the center of a major effort to bring humanitarian aid into war-torn Gaza.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20895/israeli-imperative-destroy-myths

[I]t’s crucial not to lose sight of the bigger picture: the acute multi-front assault on the Jewish state since Oct. 7 and the chronic one that’s been going on from various directions for decades.

Today’s PA leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has the same agenda as his predecessor [to annihilate the Jewish state in stages], but dresses differently for foreign consumption. Having his pocket lined with millions of dollars, euros and shekels doesn’t hurt in this effort, since the mega-wealth enables him to purchase the best that Armani has to offer. It has also provided him with the cash to fund his “pay for slay” policy.

Though Fatah, the faction headed by Abbas, is a longtime foe of Hamas, it shares the rival group’s aim of eliminating Israel. To this end, the schools, mosques and media it controls glorify “martyrdom for Allah.”

Nevertheless, the U.N. continues to treat the PA as a “moderate” entity whose goal is independent statehood, free from the ostensible shackles of Israeli “occupation…” The idea behind this fallacy is that a reformed Palestinian group can replace Hamas in Gaza when the war is over. Good luck finding anyone in the PA who fits the bill…

This hasn’t prevented the administration in Washington from clinging to the notion of a viable “two-state solution” in the la-la-land of U.S. foreign policy. This outlook poses an even greater threat in the long term than the Hezbollah drones and rockets that the IDF destroyed early Sunday.

Most sane analysts understand that Hamas and Hezbollah are Iran-backed terrorist organizations whose military capabilities have to be countered. But illusions about the PA remain dangerously intact. It’s imperative for Israel to destroy the myth along with enemy missiles.

Israel’s preemptive strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon during the wee hours of Sunday morning temporarily shifted focus away from Hamas in Gaza and from the next round of bogus “ceasefire” negotiations in Cairo for the release of hostages.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/23/hamas-alone-is-to-blame-for-the-deaths-of-those-hostages/

A bizarre debate has blown up. All over social media, people want to know: who’s responsible for the deaths of the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were discovered by the IDF in a tunnel in Khan Younis this week? Initial reports suggest the men might have died from suffocation after the IDF bombed a nearby Hamas position, causing carbon dioxide to flood the dank lair in which they were chained up. So it’s on Israel? They did this? CNN reports that the IDF was asked if it ‘killed the hostages’ at a recent press conference. Others are more brutal: those six poor souls were ‘butchered by the Israeli military onslaught’, says Owen Jones of the Guardian.

Let’s save these people some time. Let’s nip in the bud their moral deflection dolled up as critical analysis. The sole responsibility for the deaths of these six men lies with the gang of fascists who dragged them from their homes on 7 October. It lies with the Jew-haters who spirited these Jews from the safety of Southern Israel into the inevitable warzone of Gaza. It lies with the army of anti-Semites who treated the men like animals, violently robbing them of their liberty and hauling them into the dark heart of a deadly war. These men would be alive today were it not for the fascist actions of Hamas, and that’s all there is to it.

No sooner were the men’s bodies discovered than the cry went up: they died ‘as a result of [an] IDF bombing’. It seems so red is Israel’s bloodlust it even kills its own. If it was true they died as a result of a leak unleashed by the IDF’s pounding of Hamas, that would make their grim fate doubly tragic, we’re told. Here we had six Israeli civilians, four of them in their seventies or eighties, whose lives were first turned upside down by violent Islamists on 7 October, and then brought to an end as a consequence of the actions of their own army. Their deaths are proof, said Muhammad Shehada of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, that Israel’s ‘war of extermination on Gaza’ is ‘the biggest threat to the hostages’ lives’.

Soon, however, an inconvenient discovery intruded on these feverish efforts to blame Israel for the death of its own people. IDF autopsies discovered ‘marks suggestive of gunshots’. ‘Bullets were found in the bodies’, said the Hostages Family Forum, which represents the relatives of the Israelis still held captive in Gaza. No, these ‘marks’ do not prove the men were executed by their captors. As the New York Times reports, it is ‘too soon to determine whether gunshot wounds were the cause of death’. But these scars of the inhuman treatment meted out to the men by Hamas certainly complicate the early IDF-blaming narrative of Hamas’s Lord Haw Haws in the Western media.

So the debate goes on: did Hamas kill the men or did the IDF? Were they ‘butchered’ by reckless Israel or by their captors? As one report asks: did the IDF ‘again accidentally kill Israeli hostages’ or was this a ‘Hamas execution’? Who’s to blame? I’ll give you a clue: it’s the terrorist army who forced the men against their will to become actors in an apocalyptic war. It’s the racist gunmen who dragged the men into an underground hell that they knew perfectly well would be fired on and bombed. It’s Hamas. The commentariat’s reluctance to hold Hamas responsible for anything, even its own wicked deeds, is getting scary now.