Victor Davis Hanson

Israel vs. a Death Cult

Here are three critical considerations that must be understood about the current Israel-Hamas conflict. It is a sort of half-war. It consists of a military trying to defeat an organized clique of passive-aggressive, media-obsessed tribal murderers.

It is not really a war. This ‘war’ did not begin with a military assault. It is nothing like the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars, or indeed most other conflicts. It broke out with a surprise assault by between 1,500 and 2,500 gunmen of the Hamas death squads.

During peace and on a holiday, they entered Israel in a long-planned hit operation to murder civilians and take captives, focusing specifically on butchering the most vulnerable—the elderly, women, children, and infants—and in the most grotesque fashion imaginable.

Their desire was to be as savagely pre-civilizational as possible—the more macabre the manner of murder, the more fertile their sophistry that they were reduced to such repulsive blood lust by their worse “oppressors”. It would be as though gruesome Mafia hitmen had claimed they were forced to become animal-like due to even worse systemic anti-Italian bias. Even the Mexican cartels do not claim they are led to behead because of the injustice of the Mexican government.

By preplanned design, women were raped, and children and infants were burned alive, bound and executed, and (yes) beheaded. The dead were often mutilated. Some 1,400 Israelis were butchered, the vast majority civilians. Some 3,500-4,500 were wounded.

Hamas never planned to stage a preemptive war against the Israeli military. Its only agenda was to send killers to unprotected villages to murder the unarmed as they slept—in the manner of Nazi Einsatzgruppen and other mobile death squads on the Eastern Front. Almost immediately they counted on using hostages, human shields, and the media to avoid any accounting from the IDF.

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Al Jazeera may be a moslem propaganda organ, but I remember what Mazer Rackham said:
No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do.
Necessity being the mother of invention, the Ukrainians have developed the art of small drone warfare to a razor’s edge, using their experience as the best teacher, you can be sure that the jihadis will use the tech against our troops if we go kinetic again in the middle east

Well, I don’t care what anyone says, the man is undoubtedly a moslem, but since he was slick & ‘cool’, the brainless demoncraps & voted for him as others decided not to vote for McCain, and here we are.

On Israel, Biden Picks Up Where Obama Left Off

The former president forever changed the trajectory of the Democratic Party.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken contends that Hamas would gain no “greater” victory “than allowing its brutality to send us down a path of terrorism and nihilism. We must not let it.”

You can hear echoes of Barack Obama’s insufferable moral equivalencies imbued in that statement.

The contention is a not-so-subtle warning to Israel, who will almost surely enter Gaza and try to dismantle the Hamas terror state — which has been indirectly and directly funded not only by Iran, the European Union, and the United Nations but also by the Obama and Biden administrations.

The insinuation, of course, is that Israel needs to temper its inclination to engage in “terrorism and nihilism.” It is a blood libel.

It is not “terrorism” to seek justice for the pregnant woman who had her baby cut from her body or the elderly couple who was burned alive. And eliminating those who committed Nazi-like atrocities against your citizens is no more nihilistic than tracking down Eichmann or demanding Emperor Hirohito unconditionally surrender.

Yet, only days after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Biden was already lecturing Benjamin Netanyahu on how “democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.” The insinuation, again, is that there is something nefarious about winning a war against those who massacre your citizens.

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*HERO STORIES:*

“Get in under the covers, Abba (daddy) will protect you, there will be some noise but everything will be OK.”

That’s what Alon said to his three daughters who took shelter with him in a safe room when Hamas terrorists began to set fire to their home.

Heroic dad, Alon, opened the door, fired his rifle, killing one of barbaric terrorists, the other two fled, allowing Alon to return and guard his daughters during the invasion.

Apart from his role as a father Alon is also a farmer and security volunteer at Kibbutz Nirim.

Squad of female IDF combat troops eliminated nearly 100 Hamas terrorists.

Only a few have had the chance to witness the extraordinary actions of the Caracal Battalion during their battle against Hamas terrorists.

Lt.-Col. Or Ben-Yehuda, the commander of this unit, now recounts her experiences in the southern Gaza Strip, where her battalion eliminated approximately 100 terrorists. She also has a clear message for those who question the capabilities of female fighters in the Caracal (Desert Lynx) and Tank Battalion.

As the assault on the Gaza border area began, Ben-Yehuda swiftly moved from the battalion headquarters in Nahal Raviv to a post on the Egyptian border with armored personnel carriers. Rockets were raining down, and warnings arrived regarding potential terrorist infiltration in the Shlomit and Bnei Netzer towns.

In the midst of this chaos, she received a message from Lt.-Col. Yonatan Tzur, the commander of the Nahal Brigade’s patrol battalion, who was later tragically killed in an encounter with terrorists. He reported an infiltration near Sufa and Nirim, saying, “There are several terrorists there… They’re heavily armed!”

Ben-Yehuda summoned troops from the mixed-gender, infantry combat Caracal Battalion and made her intentions clear: “We are going out to eliminate terrorists. Infiltration into Israel is happening, and it’s spreading. Stay alert. We might cross paths. We are a strong squad.”

During the fast-paced journey, Ben-Yehuda began to understand the scale of the terrorist incidents in the region. Arriving at Sufa, she received a report from a sergeant from the guards at the entrance to the military base, indicating that terrorists were inside with at least three wounded.

Information revealed that the military post contained around 40 combat soldiers from the Nahal patrol, a mix of Nahal, mortar soldiers from the 50th battalion, other soldiers, military drivers operating in high-risk areas, and numerous terrorists. It was apparent that most of the combatants were in the dining room, armed with anti-tank missiles. It became clear that this was not a typical terrorist infiltration.

Approaching the base from all angles, they identified at least seven terrorists, and more from the nearby dirt embankment were starting to climb up. Suddenly, a convoy with almost 50 terrorists and snipers charged toward the squad of 12 at breakneck speed. They responded with gunfire. Terrorists were eliminated, and the others dispersed.

In a harrowing moment, a terrorist advanced on Ben-Yehuda at point-blank range, but her quick reaction saved her from harm.

Lt.-Col. A from the Magic Touch Squadron (190) arrived and identified the terrorists inside the base. He suggested taking action but Ben-Yehuda insisted on avoiding harm to the soldiers inside. Instead, bursts of fire were directed at the surrounding earthen embankments, killing terrorists and preventing further attacks on the squad.

For nearly four hours, terrorists attempted to outflank Ben-Yehuda and her team, engaging them in firefights. More vans arrived, but the Caracal Battalion commander effectively thwarted them. Additional Light Anti-Armor Weapon (LAW) missiles were launched, further eliminating terrorists: Some were killed, and others retreated.

Despite wounds to some of her soldiers, they persevered.

After hours of intense combat, soldiers from the Shayetet (flotilla) 13 Navy Special Forces unit arrived to clear the base of terrorists. Drones were launched to assist them. The firefights continued, and wounded soldiers were evacuated. They remained at the base for a total of 14 hours until it was fully secured.

Ben-Yehuda emphasized the significant contributions of the female soldiers under her command, who saved many lives through medical care and even daring helicopter landings under fire. Their remarkable performance under the extreme pressure of war highlighted their capabilities.

She also acknowledged the tank soldiers under her command, who played a vital role in defending towns and decisively impacting the battle in Holit, a kibbutz near the southwestern-most border of the Gaza Strip where at least 11 of its members were killed along with two migrant workers.

In total, her battalion eliminated around 100 terrorists. She hopes this serves as proof that there should be no more doubts about female combat soldiers. “Their training and performance on the battlefield have erased any doubts. They fought bravely, saved lives, and emerged as heroes,” she said.

Ben-Yehuda also highlighted the dedication of the commanders who rushed from home to join the fight.

She concluded: “There are no more doubts about female combat soldiers, who have triumphed in every encounter with terrorists. At present, we are responsible for 11 towns and are preparing for any potential ground maneuvers to ensure the safety of the southern Gaza border area and the Egyptian border.”

The Day the Delusions Died 

A lot of people woke up on October 7 as progressives and went to bed that night feeling like conservatives. What changed?

When Hamas terrorists crossed over the border with Israel and murdered 1,400 innocent people, they destroyed families and entire communities. They also shattered long-held delusions in the West.

A friend of mine joked that she woke up on October 7 as a liberal and went to bed that evening as a 65-year-old conservative. But it wasn’t really a joke and she wasn’t the only one. What changed?

The best way to answer that question is with the help of Thomas Sowell, one of the most brilliant public intellectuals alive today. In 1987, Sowell published A Conflict of Visions. In this now-classic, he offers a simple and powerful explanation of why people disagree about politics. We disagree about politics, Sowell argues, because we disagree about human nature. We see the world through one of two competing visions, each of which tells a radically different story about human nature.

Those with “unconstrained vision” think that humans are malleable and can be perfected. They believe that social ills and evils can be overcome through collective action that encourages humans to behave better. To subscribers of this view, poverty, crime, inequality, and war are not inevitable. Rather, they are puzzles that can be solved. We need only to say the right things, enact the right policies, and spend enough money, and we will suffer these social ills no more. This worldview is the foundation of the progressive mindset.

By contrast, those who see the world through a “constrained vision” lens believe that human nature is a universal constant. No amount of social engineering can change the sober reality of human self-interest, or the fact that human empathy and social resources are necessarily scarce. People who see things this way believe that most political and social problems will never be “solved”; they can only be managed. This approach is the bedrock of the conservative worldview.

Hamas’s barbarism—and the explanations and celebrations throughout the West that followed their orgy of violence—have forced an overnight exodus from the “unconstrained” camp into the “constrained” one.

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Repost- How Armed Israelis Stopped Terrorists

I may not know a lot, but I know when to ask someone with more experience. I read reports of armed Israeli citizens stopping the Hamas terrorists who attacked their kibbutz. There are important differences between a deliberate terrorist attack and the armed defense that happens every day in the US. I asked Ben Branum for his opinion on these events. Ben is a marine, a civilian contractor for the military, an instructor in church security, and a civilian firearm instructor. We talked for about an hour about the recent attack on the kibbutz Nir Am.

Give us a listen on Ben’s site, Modern Self Protection Podcast or listen to the mp3 from Libsyn.

Here is a second report (an archive version outside the paywall) about an attack at a slightly larger kibbutz, Mefalsim.

No, they haven’t.

Rabbi Claims That Hamas Has ‘Perverted Islam.’ Alas, No.

It’s understandable that in times of crisis, people would reach out for reassurance, for some indication that things aren’t as dismal as they seem. Still, when times are tough, it is more important than ever not to be seduced by wishful thinking.

In a disheartening exercise of willful ignorance and the myopia that wishful thinking can induce, the Jerusalem Post published a curious piece Tuesday entitled “Hamas has perverted Islam for their sacrilegious, blasphemous actions.” The author, Yakov Nagen, is identified as a rabbi and “the director of Ohr Torah Stone’s Blickle Institute for Interfaith Dialogue.” Interfaith dialogue is a realm in which self-delusion can all too easily run wild and fond hopes reign supreme over reality; Nagen’s article is, unfortunately, yet another example of this.

“What empowers Hamas and allows it to thrive,” Nagen asserts, “is that too many have accepted their corruption of the teachings of a world religion.” He notes with satisfaction that Hamas does have opponents within the Islamic world: “Hundreds of Muslim leaders signed a public statement issued by the Global Imams Council (GIC) unequivocally condemning the massacre. In the condemnation, they refer to a legal ruling issued by the Islamic Fatwa Council, located in the Iraqi spiritual capital of Najaf: ‘It is prohibited to pray for, join, support, finance, or fight on behalf of Hamas.’”

That sounds wonderful, but then Nagen adds, “The ruling enumerated 11 correlations between Hamas and ISIS, including the use of suicide bombers, missile attacks against civilians, and genocidal aspirations, in the case of Hamas annihilating the Jews.”

It is unpleasant, but nonetheless true: neither ISIS nor Hamas originated these ideas. They are all rooted in core Islamic texts. The justification for suicide bombing is in the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam: “Indeed, Allah has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth, because the garden will be theirs, they will fight in the way of Allah and will kill and be killed.” (9:111) This is the only promise of paradise in the Qur’an, but one can take hold of that promise by being killed while killing unbelievers.

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He has a point from ignorance. Willful of otherwise, I neither know, not care. He can’t figure out that it’s because they’re not ‘brothers’ to any of the Arabs. They’re violent grifters, like leftover beached pirates. They were taken in by Jordan and then started a civil war. That example was not lost on the rest of Araby.

Hold on a minute, did these pro-Palestinian protesters just storm the Capitol? I thought that was called an INSURRECTION!

 

“Arm yourself, because no one else here will save you.”

When Hamas Attacked, This Israeli Kibbutz Fought Back and Won

At 6:56 a.m. on Oct. 7, Moshe Kaplan sent an urgent alert to his volunteer security force in Mefalsim, a kibbutz of 1,000 men, women and children in southern Israel where he served as security chief.
“There’s a shooting in the village from the gate!” he texted after militants fired at his car as he drove past the main entrance. Attackers later blew open a pedestrian gate nearby with explosives and flooded into the kibbutz.
Kaplan rushed home to grab his armored vest, helmet and M16 rifle, then drove off to check another gate on the northwest corner. There he found armed men were already inside the razor-wire security fence that encircled the community.
“Terrorists in the kibbutz! Terrorists in the kibbutz!” he yelled in a second, panicked voice text, begging his men to hurry. Gunshots sounded in the background. He had trained a dozen men for this moment, a surprise attack from nearby Gaza. Yet 19 minutes after his first alert, none had arrived.
Kaplan left his car and shot at assailants from behind a metal garbage container. One lobbed a hand grenade at him. In a stroke of luck for him and Mefalsim, it didn’t explode.
More than two dozen Hamas fighters from Gaza had arrived with orders to subdue the small security force and herd hostages into the community dining hall. They carried a detailed map of the kibbutz and, like other assault teams in southern Israel that morning, an attack plan labeled “top secret.”
Mefalsim was one place that day where nothing for the Hamas attackers went according to plan.

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All failures – if this can be called that –  especially that of opponents, should also be studied for lessons to be learned.

Consider; If they all became ‘martyrs’ would there be a problem?

Hamas’s Strategy of Human Sacrifice
Never before has a party adopted a war strategy to maximize civilian deaths on its own side.

On October 13, Israeli military commanders told Palestinians living in Gaza to evacuate to the south. The northern half of the strip is full of Hamas assets—from rockets to rifles, communications gear to personnel—that Israel plans to destroy in the coming days of the war. But Hamas leaders demanded that the people stay in place. Why?

While some of Hamas’s most brutal tactics, like systematic rape and beheading captives, are long-practiced atrocities for which the armies of Stalin, Hitler, and Genghis Khan are infamous, it is unprecedented for a party to adopt a war strategy to maximize civilian deaths on its own side. This is so strange and evil that it should appall any decent person. Contrary to conventional commentary, this is not a human shield strategy. It’s a human sacrifice strategy.

Since its birth in 1987, Hamas has declared its aim to destroy Israel. Its strategy is asymmetric—that is, because Hamas is smaller and weaker than the Israeli army, it relies on a strategy designed to undermine Israel politically. In hopes (presumably) that it can induce Saudi leaders to drop their plans to normalize relations with Israel, Hamas launched this war with two goals. First, to provoke uprisings among Arabs and Muslims, both within and outside Israel. Second, to cause the rest of the world to view Israel with disgust and hatred.

To achieve these aims, Hamas is ensuring that its war will harm and kill large numbers of Palestinians in Gaza. To bring this about, it has strategized and laid groundwork for years. Its aim is to propagandize a gullible world—to put the blood of Palestinian victims on Israel’s hands.

Defense officials in numerous countries, for operational reasons and to comply with international laws of war, take pains to locate their military assets away from their civilians and to maximize protection for the latter. Hamas officials do the opposite. As United Nations officials and others have disapprovingly noted, Hamas stores ammunition in schools, puts missile launchers adjacent to mosques, sets up command centers in hospitals, and generally bases its operations in densely populated civilian neighborhoods.

This is not simply a human-shield strategy, where the aim is to deter an attack by using innocent lives as a barrier. Hamas is doing something far more insidious: it’s ensuring the mass death of Palestinians. Here is Hamas official Ali Baraka summing up the difference between the two worldviews: “The Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs.”

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Maybe if the bureaucraps wouldn’t have been infiltrating Churches, Parent’s Groups and ‘MAGA” rallies, instead of doing their Constitutional duty to protect each of them (the states) against Invasion by these Jumpin Jihadis, we wouldn’t have this to worry about.


FBI director warns of rise in terror threats against Americans, potential copy-cat attacks on US soil.

The head of the FBI is ominously warning there is a rising number of terror threats against the US — and that the biggest concern involves potential lone wolves pulling off Hamas copy-cat attacks here.

Agency chief Christopher Wray, 56, urged law enforcement to be extra cautious about ripple effects from the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict during an address at the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference in San Diego on Saturday.

“History has been witness to antisemitic and other forms of violent extremism for far too long,” he said, according to an FBI transcript. “We remain committed to continue confronting those threats.

“In this heightened environment, there’s no question we’re seeing an increase in reported threats, and we’ve got to be on the lookout, especially for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own,” he added.

Wray’s warning came a day after former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal’s designated a “Day of Jihad” on Oct. 13.

The FBI director did not divulge any specific domestic threats that the bureau may be grappling with directly stemming from the war but rather issued the broad warning.

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US death toll in Hamas terror attack rises to 29, 16 unaccounted for: State Department

The State Department said Saturday that 29 Americans were murdered by Hamas terrorists during their brutal Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel — adding two more US citizens to the tragic toll.

Another 16 Americans — 15 citizens and one legal permanent resident — remain missing, a State Department official told CNN.

“The US government is working around the clock to determine their whereabouts, and is working with the Israeli government on every aspect of the hostage crisis,” the official said.

The slain Americans have not been officially identified, but several families — including that of Cindy Flash, 67, a Minnesota native who had advocated for Palestinian rights — have come forward to speak of their lost loved ones.

Flash and her Israeli-born husband Igal were slain in the safe room of their home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz, her daughter Keren said.

“They were good people,” Keren said of her parents.

Danielle Waldman and boyfriend Noam
Danielle Waldman, 24, was one of 29 American citizens killed by Hamas in the Oct. 7 terror attack. She and her boyfriend Noam died together while attempting to flee the carnage at an outdoor music festival.
Eyal Waldman/Facebook

“They fought for other people’s rights and other people’s voices.”

Danielle Waldman, 24, a native of Palo Alto, Calif., was one of 260 victims killed at the Nova Festival, a “rave for peace” near the Gaza border.

Her father Eyal Waldman tracked Danielle’s phone and Apple Watch to discover the bullet-riddled car where she and her friends died.

“Each and every one that met her has loved her,” Waldman said.

“She’s done nothing wrong and nothing bad to anyone.”

Biden Admin Gave Hamas $75 Million While Knowing Terror Attack Was Imminent

Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration gave Hamas $75 million in early October, just days before the group launched an assault against Israel and after learning that a terrorist attack was imminent.

The aid was pushed through in a quiet move bypassing Republican obstructionism.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved the release of $75 million in funding for Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Blinken diverted the cash to Hamas just hours before the funds were set to be redistributed elsewhere.

The move was hushed through with little attention in early October, just days before Hamas launched its terrorist attacks against Israel, slaughtering, raping, and kidnapping hundreds of innocent civilians.

However, the funding was approved after the U.S. government learned that Hamas was likely planning an upcoming terror attack against Israel.

Blinken’s decision came after months of pressure from Democrat lawmakers and dozens of civil society groups.

They warned that blocking the aid would create a humanitarian disaster for over one million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The aid had been held up by Republican Senators who were pushing back against the release of the funds.

Senator Jim Risch and Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republicans on the Senate and House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committees, have since late July been blocking the State Department from providing funds to the UN’s Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA).

After he assumed office, Biden reversed President Donald Trump’s efforts to squeeze off funding to the UN agency and Hamas.

UNRWA thanked Blinken for the funds that will sustain its food distribution through early 2024.

“Thank you [Blinken] for providing $75 million in food assistance to Palestine refugees in Gaza!” said UNRWA

“This generous support from the American people will allow UNRWA to continue this critical aspect of its humanitarian and human development work through the end of Q1 2024.”

Meanwhile, more details have emerged the Biden admin also sent $33.7 million from the American Rescue Plan.

The spending bill was meant for Americans to combat Covid during the pandemic.

It was sent to a Palestinian relief organization that has previously been accused of providing safe harbor to terrorists in Gaza.