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Same applies to Israel and Hamas.

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The Ukrainian Verdun The only thing worse than an armistice with

no clear winner or loser is an endless war with more than a million

casualties. 

By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By Ruth King

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/07/the-ukrainian-verdun-2/

Ukraine has ossified into something like the modern version of the horrific Battle of Verdun, fought 108 years ago on the 1916 Western Front of World War I. That meat grinder cost France and Germany some 700,000 dead and wounded.

The nightmare ended ten months later, after the heroic French defense stopped the final German push. But the respective armies ended up in the same position as when the battle started.

After the failed preemptive Russia attack on Kyiv in February 2022 and the subsequent collapsed Ukrainian 6-month-long “spring” counter-offensive of spring 2023, the Ukrainian war has now similarly deadlocked.

Russia has failed to annex Ukraine. It has not expanded much beyond occupied Crimea and Donbass.

Yet Ukraine seems unable to push back the Russians to where they started in February 2022, much less recover lost areas grabbed earlier in 2014.

Although neither side has published reliable and comprehensive dead and wounded statistics, the war has now likely reached a horrific Verdun-like total of 600-700,000 combined casualties.

Perhaps 10 million of Ukraine’s prewar population have fled the country. Due to the massive refugee exodus, the country may have shrunk below 35 million.

In other words, Russia now has a population seven times larger, a gross national product ten times greater, and an area over 30 times the size of current Ukraine.

Still, if NATO and the United States can continue to arm Ukraine, it is as unlikely that Russia can annex Ukraine, even as it is doubtful that Ukraine can ever regain territory lost prior to 2014.

As human costs grow and the stalemate continues, talk of peace agreements arises each month.

For Ukraine and its allies, there is a growing, but private, realization that Kyiv will not recover majority Russian-speaking Donbass and Crimea that were lost a decade ago during the inert Obama administration.

Indeed, during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, there was no effort either in Ukraine or among its allies to take back by force what Russia had de facto absorbed in 2014.

So what could possibly be the outlines of the armistice agreements that are increasingly being floated in the media?

Perhaps something near what Ukraine and Russia reportedly discussed a few weeks after the failed 2022 Russian invasion.

That plan would result in the institutionalization of the decade-long Russian control of the Donbass and Crimea, coupled with guarantees of Ukrainian sovereignty along the pre-February 2022 lines.

Some have further suggested that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO but would be armed to the teeth to deter or destroy likely future Russian aggressors.

If such plans were previously floated and are reportedly now revisited, what would be the advantages and downsides for both Russia and Ukraine?

Putin would have to explain—as much as any dictator does—to his people why he started a war that cost some 500,000 Russians dead and wounded, shattered his military, and resulted in no additional territory but a vastly diminished Russian reputation.

His supposed upside would be that he alone finalized the absorption of the resource-rich Donbass and Crimea and stopped Ukraine from joining NATO.

Ukraine could counter that its bravery and allied aid inflicted the most grievous damage to the Russian military since World War II. Furthermore, guarantees to rebuild and rearm the now-veteran Ukrainian military could deter the 71-year-old Vladimir Putin from a repeat invasion.

Ukraine would lose its valid claims to the Donbas and Crimea. But again, apparently neither the Obama, Trump, prewar Biden administration, NATO members, nor Ukraine itself ever had any agenda or ability to forcefully wrest back what Putin had stolen.

But what if there is no deal?

By the end of 2024, the current status quo may well result in a combined million dead and wounded.

European nations will still talk aggressively. But increasingly, they will taper off their aid and quietly consider Ukraine out of sight, out of mind.

The emerging toxic anti-Western alliance of China, Iran, and Russia will likely strengthen. Third-party opportunists like Turkey, Vietnam, the Middle East, and southern hemisphere nations will increasingly be drawn closer into this new Axis orbit.

Measures to break the years-long deadlock will mount, with Ukrainian calls for far more and deadlier Western weapons, even as their manpower declines.

Demands will increase for strategically logical, but otherwise dangerous, escalatory attacks on Russian bases and supply depots inside Mother Russia and against the Black Sea Fleet.

Russia, in turn, will up its now-serial nuclear threats and keep targeting civilians. Deadlocked wars have a way of turning the once frightening and unimaginable into the normal and likely.

There is already crazy talk about the insertion of NATO ground troops into the war, while Russia threatens to attack other Western nations.

The only thing worse than an armistice with no clear winner or loser is an endless war with more than a million casualties.

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If The White House Staff have decided to let Biden be Biden then they also must allow BIBI to be Bibi and Israel be Israel.

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Report: Israel set deadline for agreement with

Lebanon

Israel has informed Western countries of last date to reach agreement with Lebanon ahead of widescale war.

The Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is affiliated with the Hezbollah terror group, has reported that Israel has set a deadline for a diplomatic agreement to calm tensions on the border.

According to the report, Israel informed Western countries that it will wait until March 15 to achieve a diplomatic agreement with Lebanon.

If such an agreement is not achieved by March 15, Israel is preparing for to expand the IDF's operations in Lebanon to a widescale war.

Since the start of the war with Hamas, Hezbollah terrorists have fired missiles on a near-daily basis towards northern Israel, injuring a large number of people and killing multiple others.

Earlier this week, an Indian man, Patnibin Maxwell, was killed by an antitank missile launched towards northern Israel, and seven others were injured in the strike. Following Maxwell's death, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Likud) warned Senior Advisor to President Biden Amos Hochstein that "Hezbollah’s aggression is dragging" both countries "to a dangerous escalation."

In January, Barak Ayalon (48) and his mother Merav were killed when an antitank missile struck a home in Moshav Yuval in northern Israel.

In December 2023, a 60-year-old Israeli farmer was killed when an antitank missile was fired towards the northern Israeli town of Matat.

In November 2023, Shalom Aboudi, a 56-year-old father of two, was killed by an antitank missile in the town of Dovev in the Upper Galilee; and Meir Moyal, a 55-year-old resident of Kiryat Shmona, was killed by an antitank missile as he left an IDF post where he had delivered water.

In October 2023, during the first week of the war with Hamas, Staff Sgt. (Res.) Matanya Alastar, 22 years old from Sde Ilan, was killed by an antitank rocket fired from Lebanon into northern Israel.

And:

I wrote, in a previous memo,  Israel would eventually produce it's own weaponry and depend less and less on America.  

"Never Again" is driving their decision.

No nation can fight a war having to beg for weapons.  Ask Ukraine how that feels.

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Israel Prepares to Go It Alone

By Seth Mandel

When Sen. Joseph Lieberman retired in 2012, it was the end of an era in American politics: Lieberman was the last Scoop Jackson Democrat, a staunch Cold War hawk and defender of liberalism at home and abroad.

When Joe Biden retires, he will not be the last pro-Israel Democrat. But he may be the last of his kind of pro-Israel Democrat—the Catholic who proclaims himself a Zionist from the Oval Office and lectures his critics on the moral imperative of letting the Jewish people control their fate.

Biden has spent decades, of course, getting into rows with Israeli leaders, and he’s been on the wrong side of many of them—including recently, as we’ve written here. He is neither more Catholic than the pope nor more Israeli than the Israelis. It’s just that there seems to be one line that Biden cannot be pressured to cross, and that is forcing Israel to stop fighting when it cannot afford to.

He will almost certainly be the last Democratic president, at least for some time, who is able to withstand the immense pressure from within his party and cross that line. In truth, I can’t think of a president of either party who has been hounded by his own party over Israel the way Biden has been. His vice president and presumed successor, Kamala Harris, clearly cannot wait to fold.

And the Israelis seem to have noticed. Yediot Ahronot reports that Israel went on a shopping spree to stock up on U.S.-made rifles while also setting into motion plans to build similar versions domestically to ease its reliance on American weapons. Israel will also produce a domestic line of bombs for its air force.

As the Times of Israel’s Lazar Berman points out, “A production line is expensive. It wouldn’t be opened if the IDF wasn’t committed to buying from it for years to come.” Berman also suggests this could be related to the recent decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade to challenge the subsidies received by Finkelstein Metals. That company is, as the Jerusalem Post explains, “the sole Israeli producer of brass, bronze, and copper alloy products,” with which it supplies major Israeli defense firms.

Among the systems dependent on Finkelstein Metals: Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense.

Israeli officials stressed to Yediot that part of this changeover is designed to increase weapons uniformity across IDF brigades that use similar, and now would use identical, guns. “The move will allow for great maintenance flexibility, will prevent [adjustment challenges] for soldiers who will move from regular to reserve, will provide a uniform spare parts market and will save logistical costs over the years,” said one senior IDF officer.

The Israelis hope to have the domestically produced rifles ready in 2025.

Democrats have been locked in a fight over conditioning aid to Israel, which itself is something of a compromise position intended to take the air out of the tires of the progressive wing’s drive to reduce or eliminate military aid to the Jewish state.

Last week, hours after the debunking of the claim that Israel had sprayed bullets into Gazans trying to get food off of aid trucks, Elizabeth Warren stood on the Senate floor and repeated it to support her argument in favor of limiting wartime aid to Israel. Bernie Sanders used the occasion to insist Israel “open its borders” to let more aid into Gaza. “Failure to do so should result in the immediate halt of all military aid,” he said.

The “moderates,” folks like Tim Kaine and Dick Durbin, the latter being among the party’s Senate floor leadership, have been the ones to argue for “merely” conditioning aid to our ally.

The writing is on the wall. And whether it’s written right to left or left to right, Israelis have no trouble reading it. Next time—and unfortunately for Israel, there is always a next time—they might need a Plan B.

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Why the left must lie about Hamas and rape

Journalists and those who post on social media deny the atrocities of

Oct. 7 because of the false narrative about Israel being a “settler-

colonial” state that enables anti-Semitism.

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN - JNS

You don’t have to read left-wing publications like The Intercept or The Nation or watch the “Democracy Now” program available on NPR and Pacifica to have encountered denial about the atrocities of Oct. 7. They’re commonplace on social media, and unless you only follow or interact with small bubbles of pro-Israel posters, it’s hard to avoid. But the push to deny that rape was not merely widespread but an important element of Hamas’s plans and tactics in their cross-border assaults isn’t rooted in genuine skepticism about events.

Far from an honest effort to get at the truth, the widespread scoffing about Israeli rape victims on Internet platforms is almost always accompanied by rhetoric that goes beyond the facts about Oct. 7 and the Palestinian pogroms that swept through Jewish communities in southern Israel. Instead, the posters take umbrage that anyone should feel sympathy for the victims or outrage at the perpetrators. Such discussions aren’t really about whether the evidence and testimony from numerous victims and witnesses about the horrendous crimes committed by Hamas operatives, as well as ordinary Palestinians who crossed the border in their wake on Oct. 7, proves that rape was a constant factor.

Instead, what they focus on is a litany of talking points from the woke ideology playbook in which Palestinians in “occupied” Gaza, who were actually living in an independent Palestinian state in all but name, were engaging in legitimate acts of resistance against settler-colonialism white oppressors. The rape deniers aren’t so much interested in erasing the suffering of women raped by Palestinians as they are in denying that Jews have any right to live in their ancient homeland, and because they do, must consider murder, rape, torture and kidnapping as their just desserts.

Civil war at ‘The Times’

That is the context for the bizarre argument over Hamas rapes that broke out among leftist journalists in recent weeks.

The focus of the controversy was the belated New York Times article that finally acknowledged the reality of the horror of Oct. 7. It wasn’t published until Dec. 28, nearly three months after the crimes were committed. This was much like some of the other acknowledgments of Oct. 7 by publications and groups that should have spoken out or published their work with the alacrity that they usually show when sexual offenses are reported. But the Times article, titled “ ‘Screams Without Words:’ How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 was both thorough and pulled no punches as it unraveled a story of “rape, mutilation and extreme brutality” on the part of Palestinians against Israelis. Much like the videos of some of what happened on Oct. 7 that were often taken by Hamas operatives themselves as they boasted and gloried in their criminal behavior, it makes for difficult reading. Indeed, as many of those who commented on it on the Times website noted, it’s hard to imagine how any person with a shred of decency could support Hamas or oppose Israel’s efforts to eradicate it after reading it.

But though the publication with arguably the greatest resources at their command was slow to get the article published, the mere fact that it did so was intolerable for some on the left, who didn’t even wait for Israel’s counterattack against Gaza to begin before flipping the narrative from one of terrorist outrages to one about the plight of Palestinians, including the majority of them who supported Hamas’s launching of a genocidal war aimed at destroying the Jewish state.

It was hardly surprising when The Intercept—a publication that leans harder to the left than even the Times—published not one but two pieces purporting to debunk it. The efforts seized on certain disputes among the Israeli victims and primarily focused on trying to delegitimize an Israeli freelancer who worked on the story because of social-media posts in which she vented her anger at Hamas and the Palestinians after Oct. 7. This is hypocrisy on steroids coming from left-wing journalists who make no secret of their bias. Still, nothing published by The Intercept undermined the basic truth of the Times‘ reporting or the evidence of the way sexual crimes were an integral part of the Hamas assault on Israel.

But anger about the story wasn’t confined to those who work at The Intercept.

As was soon revealed, many on the staff of the Times were also unhappy about “Screams Without Words.” The story was supposed to have served as the basis for an episode at “The Daily,” the Times popular podcast that explores the news via the paper’s reporting. The podcast staff, supported by others in the newsroom, were apparently outraged that their publication had documented Palestinian war crimes. In what can only be described as an echo of social-media posters who refuse to accept any evidence of Hamas wrongdoing and their use of rape, those involved in putting out “The Daily” were determined to poke holes in it and to treat those who had produced it as pro-Israel propagandists.

This, too, isn’t surprising. The Times staff was shown to have acted like a left-wing mob when it turned against some who worked on their opinion section when a piece critical of the Black Lives Matter riots by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was published in June 2020. The subsequent purge of the opinion staff also led to Bari Weiss deciding to resign from the paper because it had become an “illiberal” environment where activism was more important than journalism.

The next twist in the story came when those in charge at the Times, who were unhappy about being blasted by The Intercept, woke up to the fact that the attack on their solid story was largely based on leaks from Times staffers. According to reporting by NPR, that led to an investigation by the Times into which employees on their payroll were serving as sources for an outrageous assault on the newspaper’s credibility.

That, in turn, generated outrage from the Times staff, which claimed that journalists of “Middle Eastern and North African extraction” were targeted in the leak investigation and that this was evidence of discrimination. The Times rejects the charge as “preposterous.” But the upshot of the controversy is that the Times management is on the defensive. And, it should also be noted, despite the most recent—and also belated—confirmation of the sexual crimes committed on Oct. 7 by the United Nations, the Times podcast still hasn’t touched the story, despite having already done a number of episodes focusing on the Palestinians’ situation during the war.

Activists pretending to be journalists

That says a lot about the contemporary culture of American journalism. It was already clear that many of those who work at the most prestigious publications and for broadcast outlets, especially those who have begun work in the last decade and those who specialize in non-traditional journalism like digital media or videos, are committed to a view of their profession as a way to advance their partisan views rather than a search for objective truth. Their attitudes towards the war against Hamas speak primarily to the way that the spread of critical race theory and intersectionality, as well as related ideas about white privilege, have similarly tainted their understanding of the Middle East.

This is, after all, largely the same group that regards the #MeToo movement as a pivotal moment in American society and culture. It enthusiastically promoted the idea that “believe all women” was the only way to approach even those controversies involving sexual harassment about which reasonable doubts had been raised.

But just as there were double standards when it came to accusations of sexual misconduct in the United States related to partisan affiliation—accusations against Republicans like Justice Brett Kavanaugh were accepted at face value while the woman who alleged that President Joe Biden had assaulted her with just as little proof was depicted as crazy and unreliable—it is equally clear that responses to the use of rape as a weapon of war are similarly determined by how you feel about Israel. This is not so much a measure of the hypocrisy of Israel-haters as it is a function of ideology. If, like so many Americans on the left—particularly those young people who have been indoctrinated in woke mythology—you are always ready to believe that Israel is in the wrong and the Palestinians are victims no matter what they do, then you are merely doing what the teachings of intersectionality dictate. When faced with accusations against people regarded as oppressors, the woke believe all women. When it is their allegedly powerless victims who are committing the crimes, they demand evidence and dismiss the facts even when they are presented with them.

The controversies over Hamas rapes on Oct. 7, coupled with the wars being waged inside publications like the Times about them, are an indication of just how much the toxic influence of critical studies has warped both journalism and public discourse. It has exposed the dishonesty of feminist groups and international bodies that have stayed silent when they should have spoken up.

Above all else, it conclusively demonstrates the connection between the new leftist ideological orthodoxies that dominate academia and popular culture—and the crudest sort of Jew-hatred. The mobs on the streets chanting for Israel’s destruction and terrorism against Jews are no different than the mobs in liberal newsrooms; they are equally disinterested in the truth. What they care about is aiding the war on Israel and the Jews, and if that means engaging in what can only be described as the 21st-century version of Holocaust denial, then that is what they will do. But as we know from past discussions about Holocaust denial, no one should be under any illusions about the questions raised about the veracity of reports about the slaughter and mistreatment of Jews. Such talk is always a reliable indicator of anti-Semitism

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In Case You Missed It

Please consider sponsoring an EMET webinar featuring top experts offering critical insights impacting Israel and U.S. national security. Policymakers and the general public need to hear these voices.

[TRANSCRIPT WILL BE AVAILABLE HERE]

After the worst massacre of Jews on a single day since the Holocaust, many members of the international community have arrived at a single-factor conclusion of how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, combined with grandiose plans of how to finally bring peace to the Middle East: the rewarding of this violence with the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state, stretching from Judea and Samaria, (the West Bank) through Gaza. The “dusting off” of this solution, which has been tried, stretches back to the 1937 Peel Commission, the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the 1967 Khartoum Conference, the Oslo Accords of 1993, the Roadmap for Peace in 2002, and the Gaza Withdrawal of 2005.

Before we launch into this, it is important to explore the following questions: Have the Palestinians behaved as a friend or ally to the United States in the past? How have the Palestinians behaved in their host Arab countries? Have they been a stabilizing influence or a destabilizing influence? What have the Palestinians, themselves expressed in terms of their affinity towards Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as opposed to the “so-called” more moderate groups of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, and what is the real distinction between them? If established, how stable would a Palestinian Authority government be?

Here to answer these questions and more is Ambassador Yoram Ettinger.

About the Speaker: Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger is an insider on US-Israel relations, Mideast politics and overseas investments in Israel’s high tech.  He is a member of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), which has documented dramatic flaws behind demographic fatalism on one hand and a Jewish demographic momentum on the other hand.

He is a consultant to members of Israel’s Cabinet and Knesset, and regularly briefs US legislators and their staff on Israel’s contribution to vital US interests, on the root causes of international terrorism and on other issues of bilateral concern.

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger’s OpEds have been published in Israel and in the US, and he has been interviewed on Israel’s and US’ TV and radio.  He was a speaker at AIPAC Annual Conference.

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger – who did his graduate studies at UCLA and undergraduate at UTEP – served as Minister for Congressional Affairs at Israel’s Embassy in Washington (with a rank of an ambassador), Israel’s Consul General in Houston and Director of Israel’s Government Press Office.  He is the editor of Straight From The Jerusalem Cloakroom and Boardroom newsletters on issues of national security and overseas investments in Israel’s high-tech.

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Mother Superior's Michelle, Jill and Hillary belittle many Americans thinking we are all White Supremacist's "deplorables."

I think of American's as being Bassett Hounds. Often odd in our physical appearance and manners, lovable but stubborn but very devoted and loyal  We are also generous,  to a fault, and probably still brave.

I also believe, the world is better because of American's. We have accomplished miraculous things which have blessed mankind and made human life better and are a sharing, generous people. 

As for our government, America is unique, we are the envy of the world. We have made our share of mistakes but our Constitution both allows and encourages us to correct them.

Compared to our adversaries, they are the true deplorables.

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