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Yesterday (Oct. 8) I received a rebuke for my assessment of BIBI from a very long time friend, a fellow memo reader and a student of Israel, clinically not politically, for well over 50 years. He always corrects me factually and tells me when he disagrees, I always listen without comment until he concludes and then respond.
He agrees Bibi began as a bright, man of the people but has morphed into a typical power seeking politician and his every move is determined by decisions to avoid conviction from an investigator who Bibi appointed. I have a tendency to accept some of my friend's assessment because I know, having been the longest serving PM and a desire to continue in that position, Bibi is no Begin.
My friend also asserts Bibi has appointed those to run the government who are totally incompetent and the economy, of late has suffered. Once again I have little faith in bureaucrats, as the reader knows, but I also believe the Israeli economic picture was moderately impacted by Covid as well as the unresolved Supreme Court Issues and capital inflows have diminished.
He then stated Bibi has made bed with the devil and several ministers also have unresolved criminal issues. I deferred to that comment but I know the attitude of living off the land by the extreme right is not something I respect. There are no free lunches and I embrace what my father always said: "Jews are like people only more so." When it comes to Israelis they tend to be more extreme in their attitudes and behaviour and can be their own worst enemy.
Then we discussed his views of the unfolding war and, here, we are mostly in agreement. First we agree that wars take many turns and twists and this one should evolve in 3 phases.
1) The IDF must eliminate all Hamas in Israel. You cannot move forward until you have cleared the rear guard of the enemy.
2) The next phase addresses the hostage issue and here Israel should give Hamas 5 minutes to release them and failing that begin a series of eliminating infrastructure. This has party begun. and should continue as long as necessary.
3) The 3rd phase is the elimination of Hamas leadership.
Where I am somewhat more reluctant is to believe Biden's, avowedly strong public commitment, is reliable. My friend believes it is and cites the repositioning of the American carrier fleet. He doubts American boots will be used but American air power will respond to any desire by Iran to release and confront Israel with attacks from Hezballah and/or Iran.
Hamas/Iran have made a drastic mistake which has united the nation. I never doubted the resolve of Israelis to survive and defend their country once push came to shove.
My friend and I ended our conversation by agreeing, time will tell and so it will because this time may be different.
I am of the view the war has taken the spotlight off the Biden Inquiry and if he hangs tough and Israel accomplishes their goal it will enhance Biden's electability and he might be able to stay in the basement, avoid voters, as well as the mass media, nap all he needs and win again because Trump remains handcuffed regarding campaigning.
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Dick
I have just returned from doing ad hoc sandwich making at a bakery here in Rosh Pina which has turned itself into an operations center to provide food for soldiers.
As dispiriting as the first two days of this war had been, I am immensely proud to see the resolve, resilience, and determination of my fellow citizens.
Regular people and local businesses have been donating massive supplies of bread, cheese, vegetables, tuna and other items that can be readily packaged and donated to the hundreds of thousands of reservists who have now been called up.
By the way, the fact that we are “officially” at war means that the government and the IDF are unrestricted in their ability to call up reservists. And everyone is honoring the call.
Our little town is representative, but hardly unique, in its desire to be part of a supportive home front. It has become a national obsession. After all, the soldiers are our kids, or the children of those we know. This is not an abstraction, not an event that is happening to others.
The news is getting less cringeworthy. The tide of battle is beginning to shift.
My hope is that we continue to bomb (and bomb and bomb) the daylights out of Hamas such that if when a ground invasion is needed, it can be targeted and not play into the hands of the enemy.
I do not need to know the details of what we are doing. I only want to know that we have the resolve to remove, once and for all, this toxic scourge.
Hamas, for all their strategic brilliance in blindsiding us, has made a terrible PR mistake: they have shown the world who they really are. They have shocked the moral equivalence crowd, and the blame Israel firsters with the barbarism and inhumanity of their actions.
Raping young girls, dragging murdered bodies through the street, wholesale murdering of families in shelters, parading elderly people through the streets in order to humiliate (if not torturing) them, are now on display for the whole world to see.
What Israel has been saying for years about the brutality of Hamas (including to their own people) is now self-apparent.
My fervent hope is that we stop the sanctimonious concern about being “the most moral army in the world.” It is misplaced sanctimony that seems completely inappropriate given the inhumanity of our enemy.
As a friend suggested, how about “the most deadly army in the world?” Well, that gets my vote.
Doug
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Britain's Col Kemp has always been clear eyed.
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Col. Richard Kemp: Gaza op. too complex for Hamas, Iran and Russia behind it
Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan tells INN West must support Israeli efforts to destroy Hamas after massacre.
Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British military forces in Afghanistan, spoke to Israel National News - Arutz Sheva on Sunday about the Hamas-launched war on Israel in which over 350 people have been murdered so far and stated that Russia's hand can be seen in the attack in addition to the hand of Iran.
The attack began with a coordinated breach of the Gaza border fence at multiple locations accompanied by the firing of thousands of rockets into southern Israel, allowing squads of terrorists to penetrate into Israel and attack numerous communities and cities in southern Israel in the early morning. Israel was caught completely off-guard by the assault, representing a massive intelligence failure.
"I have no doubt that questions about this intelligence failure are being addressed now in the Israeli government," Col. Kemp said of the failure to predict and stop the deadly Hamas onslaught. "I am sure there will be a full inquiry when the current situation is stabilized. Until then we can only speculate. This attack has been called Israel’s 9/11 by some people, or Israel’s Pearl Harbor, both of which were also accompanied by tragic intelligence failure."
He stated that Iran and Russia were behind the attack which was, according to him, "too complex for Gaza terrorists to pull off on their own."
"The specific date was chosen by the Palestinian terrorists to take advantage of the Israeli holiday period, very much like the Yom Kippur War that began around the same time in 1973. But the strategic context is threefold. First, Iran’s hand was behind this attack. They fund, arm, and direct Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Iran is dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish State as their leaders have repeated again and again.
He explained: "Second, Russia would have also been behind this attack. Moscow and Tehran are close allies who have cooperated over the mass murder of civilians in the Ukraine war, for which Iran has supplied killer drones. Leaders of Islamic Jihad and Hamas have visited Moscow in the last few months meeting senior Russian government officials. Russia’s motivation here is to foment instability in the Middle East to distract US political bandwidth as well as resources away from Ukraine."
"Third, in their pursuit of chaos and Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, both Russia and Iran want to disrupt the normalization negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Israel," he said. "It is hard to assess the impact this will have [on the negotiations with Saudi Arabia], but it will certainly complicate negotiations and may even lead to their temporary abandonment."
To the question of how Israel should respond to such a brazen and deadly attack, he responded that "the laws of war on proportionality have no bearing on strategic objectives, only on the conduct of operations where civilian life might be endangered. Israel is well known for its proportionate use of force in defense of its citizens despite the propaganda campaign that suggests otherwise. I think this attack will have changed Israel’s strategic calculus and it will have to inflict unprecedented damage on Hamas’s and Islamic Jihad’s leadership. That may mean a ground operation into Gaza that leads to a long or medium-term military presence on the ground. I think the immediate goal will be to destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad as viable terrorist bodies."
"As to the hostages, this is perhaps the most difficult challenge Israel faces. Rescuing large numbers of people no doubt dispersed in secure locations around Gaza may well be impossible but I have no doubt the Israeli government, intelligence, and IDF will make every conceivable effort to do so. Perhaps the best hope would be international pressure on the terrorists but these hostages are a prize they will be most unwilling to give up," he said.
"The West must recognize Iran’s and Russia’s hand in this. The US in particular should stop appeasing Iran. Western governments should treat Hamas and Islamic Jihad as their enemies and support Israel in its efforts to destroy them as well as applying their own punitive action against them. Western leaders should speak loudly in support of Israeli military defensive action now and for the long term, working to counter the anti-Israel narrative that will be boosted by Israel’s necessary actions to defend its population, Col. Kemp concluded.
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Amb. Erdan: Hamas gunned down Jewish revelers just like Nazi death squads in the 1940s
Israel's UN Ambassador holds press conference following Hamas attack on Israel: This is Israel’s 9/11. Nothing will be the same from now on.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, held a press conference in the UN on Sunday ahead of the Security Council’s meeting on the surprise Hamas terror attacks against Israel.
The Ambassador presented shocking photos and distressing videos of civilians who were murdered or kidnapped from their homes by Hamas including children and the elderly, among them Holocaust survivors. He emphasized that this is Israel’s 9/11 and that from now on, nothing will be the same.
Ambassador Erdan said, “These animal-like terrorists broke into homes, gathered entire families into rooms and shot them point blank. As if they were stomping on insects. Grandparents and the elderly, among them Holocaust survivors who endured the Nazis, were violently dragged from their homes, this time by Hamas, and taken into Gaza…. These are war crimes! Blatant documented war crimes!”
The Ambassador also referred to the massacre at the nature party near Gaza, saying, "These savages gunned down Jewish revelers just like Nazi death squads in the 1940s. Hundreds were butchered, their bodies mutilated and defiled. And those who survived were taken to Gaza.”
The Ambassador made clear that he expects only one thing from the Council. "Hamas’ war crimes must be unequivocally condemned. This unimaginable atrocity must be condemned. Israel must be given steadfast support to defend ourselves. To defend the free world.”
Ambassador Erdan also presented the charter of Hamas and said, "Hamas is a genocidal Islamist Jihadist terror organization. It is no different than ISIS. It is no different than Al Qaeda. There is no reasoning with genocidal Jihadists. They do not want dialogue. They do not want conversation. They want one thing, and one thing only – the annihilation of the Jewish State. Internalize this. They want to butcher me, my children, my people, and my nation. They will not stop until they murder every single one of us."
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A 50th Anniversary War? By Victor Davis Hanson
Posted By Ruth King
Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians—one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?
And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands? a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies—the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking.
Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement. b) Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?).
And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).
c) Hamas may have reckoned that recent Israeli turmoil and mass leftist street protests over proposed reforms of the Israeli Supreme Court had led to permanent internal divisions and thus a climate of domestic distraction if not an erosion of deterrence. But, more importantly, in a larger sense the Biden administration has contributed both to the notion that Hamas was a legitimate Middle East player, and to the perception that the U.S. was backing away from its traditional support for Israel—to the delight of Hamas—based on the following inexplicable policies:
1) In February Secretary of State Blinken had bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the PLA cancelled by Trump, but cumulatively had transferred $1 billion—even as Palestinian authorities bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel). And millions of American dollars also went into Gaza, run by Hamas—despite the Biden administration’s efforts to keep mostly quiet the resumption of such inexplicable support. In this regard, note the current shameful State-Department (“U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”) website news release that was posted after today’s attack. It ended with this quite embarrassing, morally equivalent admonition: “We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.” “All sides?” “Refrain from retaliatory attacks?” So Israel is the moral equivalent of terrorists executing civilians and brutalizing their corpses? And the IDF then is not supposed to retaliate against these killers? This Biden State Department insanity cannot stand. So expect some apparatchik to take down this Munich-like posting as soon as possible.
2) The Biden administration had recently released some $6 billion to Iran through a prison swap deal that saw South Korea hand over embargoed Iranian money to Qatar—despite Tehran’s increased anti-Israeli rhetoric and its loud brag about the escalation. We should assume money for rockets (Hamas claims they have launched 5,000, and have received 100,000 of them via the Damascus airport) and weapons in general for Hamas were supplied by Iran, which again is likely the chief catalyst for this surprise attack.
3) Almost immediately, after his inauguration Biden mobilized to resume the bankrupt Iran deal. And in unhinged fashion he appointed the anti-Israeli bigot, pro-Iranian journalist Robert Malley as America’s chief negotiator. Note that Malley is now under FBI investigation for security breaches, involving disclosing classified U.S. documents and also for allegedly helping pro-Iranian activists and propagandists land influential billets inside the U.S. government. In short, there was a general Hamas and Iranian perception that the Biden administration had resumed the discredited Obama madness of empowering Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.
This discredited agenda was to “balance” the power of Israel and the moderate Arab Gulf governments to achieve “creative tension”, exacerbated by Biden’s loathing of the government of BenjamÃn Netanyahu (who has been snubbed by Biden and never invited for an official visit).
Note as well that the Biden administration has siphoned off key weapons and munitions from stockpiles inside Israel to transfer them to Ukraine. The so-called “War Reserve Ammunition—Israel” is all but depleted of just the sorts of weapons needed in the present crisis. In this regard is there not a pattern here? Upon the ascension of Biden and his woke military agendas, we saw the following: the complete humiliation of the U.S. in Kabul in its most shameful flight in 50 years and greatest abandonment of equipment in its history; followed by Vladimir Putin’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine; followed by China’s new belligerence and escalating threats to Taiwan; followed by Turkey’s new de facto alliance with Russia and recent drone encounter with the U.S. air force in Syria; followed by the Hamas/Iranian inspired attack on Israel—with more to come unfortunately.
And will Biden finally get the message from the attacks on the Ukraine and Israeli borders, that borders matter and we too are being invaded, with the encouragement of the Mexican government and to the advantage of the cartels whose fentanyl exports kills 100,000 Americans a year?
What to expect in Israel? Expect the following: the usual Hamas/terrorist selling and/or execution of Israeli hostages, the use of Israeli hostages as “human shields” in Gaza, the bargaining/sale of the remains of Israeli dead, occasional killings of Jews inside Israel by Arabs who falsely believe there will be a winning Middle East-wide existential war against Israel. And finally, a devastating Israeli counter-response that will eventually earn a U.S. rebuke. What should the U.S. instead do? It should quit talking to Iran and restore full sanctions against it. It should cut off all aid immediately to all the Palestinians. It should undertake a 1973-like massive arms lift of key munitions to Israel and warn Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East not to intervene or else, given that Israel will need several weeks to deal with Hamas and Gaza. And if it shows any hesitation or weakness, other terrorist groups will opportunistically jump in.
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Israel's annihilation of Hamas is the proportionate response
By Washington Examiner
Hamas murdered more than 700 people and wounded many thousands during its invasion of Israel on Saturday. The casualty numbers keep rising. Even for a society that has so long suffered terrorist persecution, this attack was extreme and catastrophic.
Most of the world is disgusted by the terrorist atrocities. Video clips reveal that the barbarians who claim to be freedom fighters stripped and abused civilian women, desecrated their bodies, terrorized screaming children, lined up Holocaust survivors, and dragged them off as captives. The Hamas fighters and their supporters yelped and capered in delight. It was a grotesque and damnable spectacle. The images testify to an enduring truth that the killers are motivated by a fetishistic desire to subjugate and slaughter Jews simply because they are Jews.
Jew hatred is enshrined in the Hamas charter, which declares the group’s struggle to be “against the Jews.” This is not about freeing land that was never a country — referred to as Palestine. It is about venting murderous hatred against a people. Hamas embraces antisemitic falsehoods, even referring in its charter to the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Unalloyed hatred undergirds what Hamas did on Saturday and what it has done for decades.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders recognize that the latest mass atrocity has changed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict forever. It made the long-standing and explicit Hamas goal of annihilating the Jewish nation a looming reality. As long as Hamas exists, its reason for being will be to exterminate Jews. This is uniting the divided Israeli polity to wage a defensive war of survival. This war is necessary, unavoidable — a moral and existential necessity.
As night follows day, there will be politicians and activists on the Left who denounce Israeli retaliation. They will suggest, perhaps after three or four days of Israeli military action in Gaza, that the Jewish state’s response is “disproportionate.” When this moral casuistry comes, as it will, it should be rejected. Israel must have a free hand to destroy Hamas.
This point must be emphasized because it is common (and uncommonly stupid) to decry the supposed excesses of Israeli military action. The insipid clamoring posits that because hundreds of Hamas or Islamic Jihad rocket launches tend to kill only a few Israelis, Israel is unjustified in responding with air strikes that kill larger numbers of Hamas fighters. This ignores the effect rockets have on Israeli civil society, forcing citizens to abandon their lives for bunkers. No credible democratic government can be expected to tolerate such aggression against its citizens.
Hamas has the intention and capacity to rampage even amid Israeli bunkers. This expands the proper limits of Israeli proportionality. A sustained Israeli campaign to annihilate Hamas, not just its leaders but also its soldiers, support structures, and capabilities is proportionate. If the Israelis leave a heap of smoldering ash where Hamas used to be, that would be proportionate. Because Gaza is densely populated and Hamas uses mosques and apartment buildings as bases for its military operations, Israel’s campaign will be bloody, and innocent Palestinians will die. But Israel has the right to wage attritional war against an enemy hell-bent on wiping it off the Earth.
Hamas cannot be allowed to manipulate global public relations to its advantage. It is surely banking on a few days of painful conflict, giving way to Israel buckling under international pressure to suspend military action. The United States must ensure that this does not happen. Whether that means United Nations Security Council vetoes or U.S. action to impose costs on those who try to prevent Israel from defending itself, the U.S. must stand firm.
It is not certain that Israel can succeed in eliminating Hamas. But it has the right to try. The more of Hamas’s forces, weapons, and structures that Israel can eliminate the safer Israelis will be, and the better the Middle East will be. The more of Hamas’s forces, weapons, and structures that survive this war, the greater threat Israelis will continue to face.
Previous conflicts have shown that if Israel imposes sufficient costs on Hamas, its leaders stop the attacks in favor of cease-fires. A far harsher cost must now be imposed to restore deterrence in Israel's favor.
Like those Palestinian terrorists who hijacked airliners and cruise ships in decades past, Hamas claims that its ultimate goal is the liberation of the Palestinian people. We now have proof that Hamas’s strategy for freedom is not one of violence pursuant to political negotiation but rather of genocide. For Hamas, a free Palestine is not something to be constructed by peace talks and land swaps but by the construction of a great new Auschwitz.
Having tasted that bitter ambition, Israel has the right to use great force to prevent its further construction.
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HONEST REPORTING
Media Analysis
Media Whitewash Hamas & Parrot Terror Group’s Talking Points
Numerous foreign media outlets have failed to provide audiences with an understanding of the context behind the barbaric surprise Hamas attack against Israel that began in the early morning of October 7 by misrepresenting Hamas’ ideology and goals as well as implicitly placing the blame on Israel for this latest conflagration.
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News Critique
Wire Disservice: Reuters, AP Misrepresent Hamas’ Terror Attack
As the horrific dimensions of Hamas’ gruesome attack on Israeli civilians yesterday become clearer, it seems like news agencies’ reports on the shocking event are becoming blurrier.
Three disturbing patterns emerge from recent pieces by Reuters and the Associated Press: Victims and perpetrators are lumped together, terrorists’ atrocities are minimized, and full paragraphs are devoted to rationalizing the barbaric acts.
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The Guardian Ignores Harrowing Hostage Videos and Hamas Rockets in Sickening YouTube Video
As Israel prepared to respond to the murderous Hamas terror onslaught that saw Israeli civilians slaughtered in their homes and on the streets, abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip, and thousands of rockets fired towards Israel, this was how The Guardian chose to summarize the ongoing atrocity in a video that was posted to its official YouTube account: “Israel launches military response as Israel-Palestine war escalates.”
Although The Guardian is practically synonymous with biased reporting about Israel, this video marks a new and disturbing low for the outlet.
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