A Global Day of Jihad

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH was declared a global day of jihad by Hamas. Astonishingly, some people, including in the West, took it to heart. Thousands protested across the Middle East in support of the Palestinian cause, as well as throughout Europe. France actually banned the demonstrations after violence erupted. Even Australia had its share of protests. People allegedly gave Nazi salutes outside of the Jewish Museum in Sydney. Dumb, spoiled ‘snowflakes’ protested at their Ivy League schools in the U.S. in antisemitic hissy fits. At Harvard, students blamed Israel for Hamas attacks. Columbia actually closed its campus due to protests.

At best, it’s embarrassing. There is no nuanced thought anymore. Once-upon-a-time, the Palestinian plight was something you could be sympathetic to—back during WWI when Britain wanted to find a place for Jews and the 1917 Balfour Declaration was penned, establishing that little patch of ‘holy’ land as a perfect homeland for them. It was the beginning of Zionism. The fact others—Palestinians— would be displaced was an afterthought to the extent it was thought about at all. 

Fast-forward to the formal creation of the State of Israel in 1948, after all the horrors of Naziism and WWII. The world’s sympathies flipped. Palestinians did, in fact, get screwed, but never managed to muster a world audience willing to hear its legitimate claims and complaints, especially after it became de rigueur for them to protest using violence, which Israel successfully portrayed as terrorism. Eventually, Israel became sophisticated at playing a good hand its benefactors dealt, and it remains so today. The Holy Land is, in fact, a master at propaganda. 

Despite the West’s stacked deck in Israel’s favor, it doesn’t follow Israelis deserve to die at Palestinian hands. A two-state solution is probably the best even if it’s not ideal, but the two primary parties and regional neighbors need to negotiate any future deal. Israel will not, however, negotiate with ‘terrorists,’ nor should it be expected to. Both sides have valid points, not necessarily equally compelling ones, but points nonetheless. If this were an easy problem, it would’ve been solved already. 

The consensus is that Iran and its Gaza-based proxy, Hezbollah, is behind this. Exactly why is less clear since historically, Palestinians had a hard time even getting Arabs to meaningfully support them, let alone, Persians. Some, including The Epoch Times’ C.C.P. expert Joshua Phillip, have surmised there is a concerted effort by China to put the United States in a four-front war that will exhaust all its resources and ultimately divest it of its world hegemony. One of those wars, it is said, must be a terrorist war. What could be better than Hezbollah, which wants to take down America’s staunchest middle eastern ally, Israel?

The four fronts are, ostensibly, Russia/Ukraine, Iran/Israel, China/Taiwan, and Mexico/America (i.e., the border crisis). Three of the four are already in play. What could be better than to have the illegitimate occupant of the White House running the show? He’s a Chinese hand puppet himself and will help move things along swimmingly. Undoubtedly, there are others in government, specifically the House and Senate, who are also corrupted by the C.C.P., especially some from the West Coast, including former Speaker of the House (D-Calif.) Nancy Pelosi. In this framework, things start to make sense, although maybe it’s all just a coincidence. 

Old Joe now says he won’t forward the $6 billion to Iran in the prisoner deal it made after being criticized for effectively financing the Hamas attacks on Israel.  The money, however, is apparently in Qatar, whose Prime Minister said he’d keep the money out of Iranian hands but then said he intends to honor the agreement Israel and Iran made. Israel Defense Forces has made a “very intentional” plea to evacuate Gaza to prevent harm to one million civilians, but Hamas is apparently blocking them from doing so. Hamas is also putting up roadblocks in Gaza City. Egypt and Syria are refusing the mass exodus of refugees they envision and have closed the borders. This has resulted in the U.N. pleading with Israel to rescind its Gaza evacuation order. 

Anyone should be able to see how this plays out. The U.S. will pay Egypt and Jordan and perhaps others to take in the refugees in a financial package that will break the bank. Those the U.S. cannot find homes for there will be given clandestine instructions to the Darien Gap to get into the U.S. furtively. U.S. taxpayers will be on the hook, and their so-called leaders will be hailed as ‘problem solvers.’ It’s not far-fetched. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken isn’t in Jordan to test this years’ wine bouquet after a quick dip in the Dead Sea. Thank God or Allah or Whoever that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is also abroad, meeting with Israelis in Tel Aviv. That plays out in concert, too. The Israelis will give a list of weapons they need, like maybe batteries for the Iron Dome, and they will be ceremoniously provided. 

Meanwhile, in just a few days, Old Joe gave Ukraine another $200 million in aid and another few million illegal aliens got free passes to their favorite U.S. cities…

The Guest and the Rest

THE HAMAS COMMANDER of the military wing of the group is Mohammed Deif. It is a nom de guerre that translates to “the Guest.” It is apt given the practice of militant Palestinians to sleep in a different bed of sympathizers every night. His ambition is simply to destroy Israel. Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet has a lengthy file on two generations of men in his family going back to the 1950s, but he remains a mystery even though they have attributed the death of well over 50 civilians to him.

He was well-known to Israeli security who nearly killed him two decades ago in an airstrike that cost him, literally, an arm and a leg (and an eye) and left him wheelchair-bound. A survivor of five Israeli attacks, he is revered by many aggrieved Palestinians. He video-taped a message that was chilling. It was released within hours of the attack on Israel on Saturday. He said:

“In light of the continuing crimes against our people, in light of the orgy of occupation and its denial of international laws and resolutions, and in light of American and Western support, we’ve decided to put an end to all this so that the enemy understands that he can no longer revel without being held to account.”

Videos were also released by Hamas on social media showing its militants paragliding over the border along with gruesome pictures of dead soldiers and terrified civilians. Footage was shown beheading soldiers. It wasn’t amateur hour. As of Monday evening, more than 900 Israelis have been killed, 2,600 injured, and others captured and taken hostage. Apparently the attack that was celebrated by Palestinians and Muslims worldwide, was rehearsed in plain sight. By Monday evening, U.S. time, Hamas threatened to execute 150 hostages online. It appears the analogy of it being Israel’s 9/11 was fairly accurate.

Some, including the third-largest Israeli newspaper Haaretz, blame Bibi Netanyahu for the deadliest attack on the Holy Land in a half decade when Egypt and Syria attacked in 1973’s Yom Kippur War. Netanyahu and his “fully-right government”  was derelict in identifying the dangers of his government’s practice of “annexation and dispossession” and the appointment of certain men hostile to Palestinians and Palestinian statehood who are intent on expanding Jewish settlements. The military and intelligence failures by his government does not absolve him of responsibility either, the newspaper opined. Brokering a peace deal with Saudi Arabia gave the Palestinians nothing, it added. Netanyahu’s three corruption cases, it claims, made him unable to look after affairs of the state.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Affairs blames the European Union for funding “antisemitic propaganda.” And halfway around the world, there was plenty of blame for the completely incompetent Joey Biden, who has been illicitly occupying the White House since 2020. Specifically, he abandoned a massive cache of military weapons and equipment when he suddenly and irresponsibly bugged out of Afghanistan which, it appears, found its way to Israel. 

Biden also unfroze $6 billion in assets of Iran in a recent prisoner swap, which, it also appears, was used to fund the attack on Israel. (Iran’s involvement via its militia, Hezbollah, has been acknowledged by Hamas.) Aside from that, Biden’s irresponsible, unmeasured, and unaccountable giveaway of American weapons, including equipment, supplies, and money, to Ukraine and its corrupt president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has resulted in the shipment of war spoils from fallen Ukrainian soldiers to Hamas militants, a fact admitted to by Kyiv. Plus, Biden has been distracted with his own corruption and that of his son, Hunter, as well as the many international and domestic issues plaguing what was recently considered the world’s most major power. 

Netanyahu, for whatever his degree of fault may be, deemed Hamas “worse than ISIS” and vowed to get vengeance. He is, after all, a living master class in propagandizing. By Monday, his response had killed 3,000 in the two-day blitz over Gaza. A full-scale ground invasion is expected to commence on Tuesday. Some very graphic photographs have been published (and not yet censored by U.S. authorities) of the response in The Sun. With its 300 rocket launchers, 173,000 active troops, 465,000 reserve personnel, 2,200 tanks, and 601 planes, Israel’s complete response promises to be unforgiving and bloody. How the Iron Dome was overwhelmed isn’t clear, but undoubtedly, it will be examined.

Claiming “we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant promised, “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” referring to Gaza. 

A senior Hamas official reportedly said the group was open to a possible ceasefire given it had “achieved its targets.” But Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog lamented that “not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day,” and Netanyahu has officially declared war, so a ceasefire, understandably, wouldn’t seem likely to be on the negotiating table. Typical Palestinian mismanagement!

Night of the Hang Gliders 2.0

לילהגלשונים  2.0  [Night of the Hang Gliders  2.0]

HAMAS ATTACKED ISRAEL with a 5,000-airstrike surprise on Shabbat in an almost unprecedented failure of Israeli intelligence and the characteristic bravado of a major foe. The enemy also attacked by land and sea, breaching Israeli territory using armed men in cars, small boats, and para-gliders. Hamas is the largest of militant Islamist groups in Palestine, and refuses to recognize Israel. It considers it Palestinian territory. Israel, of course, disagrees.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasted no time in declaring war, dubbed Operation Iron Swords, promising his nation would be “embarking on a long and difficult war” against the Palestinian militants. He promised Gaza would be “reduced to rubble” in a swift retaliation. Despite Israel’s $1 billion Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepting some, but not all of the rockets that were launched from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli death toll on Saturday exceeded 300, with thousands of others injured or captured and taken hostage. Many more casualties are expected. Palestinians in the West Bank celebrated as Israelis mourned the loss.

As promised, by Sunday (Israeli time), Israeli Defense Forces blitzed Gaza mercilessly, targeting 426 sites with tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers deployed. Netanyahu  tweeted (or X’ed), “All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble. I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” The E.U., U.K., Germany, France, and Italy all condemned the brazen attack and the U.S. pledged support. Sure enough, the I.D.F. dropped 450 missiles in 40 minutes on the Gaza Strip, hitting some 150 targets in retaliation.

It is unknown how Hamas was able to amass such a huge arsenal given the blockade on Gaza by Israel and its allies, including the United States. Both Jewish and Arabic communities lay claims to the disputed land, and violence erupts periodically over it, most recently, in an 11-day crisis in 2021. Israel has naturally maintained a tight control over Gaza’s borders. Some suspect the recent prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iran, which included unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian assets by the U.S. in addition, may have been used to secure the munitions by Iran to be used by Hamas. And the West has been distracted by Ukraine, including U.S.

The Drudge Report and others likened the Hamas attack to an ‘Israeli 9/11,’ but that isn’t correct beyond the fact the attackers were, broadly speaking, Arabic or Muslim. It is really more analogous to what is known historically as the ‘Night of the Hang Gliders,’ when, on 11/25/87, two Palestinian guerrillas infiltrated Israel via Lebanon using hang gliders to attack the I.D.F.  Even this isn’t the same, given one attacker then was killed by the I.D.F., and the remaining man killed only six Israeli soldiers and wounded eight others before being shot dead himself. But it does show the difference three⁺ decades of resentment and repression can make in an angry population. A second generation, 2.0, perhaps.