A Double-Edged Sword

Almost as horrifying as Hamas going all murderously Einsatzgruppen in Israel two weekends ago, is the realization that yes, indeed – is the realization there are a not-inconsiderable number of Americans (and Americans-in-name-only) cheering them on. Cheering the remorseless slaughter of young and old alike, kidnapping for extortion and/or jollies, mutilation, torture, burning whole families and individuals alive, gang-rape … it’s a sobering spectacle. I expect any minute a rousing chorus of “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” from the Jew-hating undergrads and their professors on the campus too many colleges and universities.

I used to wonder how Germans under Adolph Hitler came around to accept, support, or at least turn a blind eye towards the so-called “Final Solution”, during the 1930s and ’40s. Well, wonder no more – I’ve seen it play out now in real time. Corked up resentments, envy and pure unadulterated hatred, given voice in classrooms, newsrooms, in social media and from the pulpits of certain churches, spewing from so-called leaders of various communities … all spilling out, in the wake of October 7 … it’s as sick-making as reports of all the rejoicing in the Arab streets, and the comments about how we Americans had it coming, after 9-11. To try and focus on the horror and misery inflicted on the innocent and the self-justifying replies from the usual pro-Palestinians boils down to something like the rationale from an abusive spouse – “Look at what you made me do!”

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The New Pogrom

I think the reason that last Saturday’s massacre in Israel hits so close to the nerve of Americans like my daughter and I, is because we can look at the pictures and video of the victims and the aftermath and see ourselves. My daughter and I look at pictures of the blood-spattered crib and the baby carrier and see Wee Jamie. Hear him crying in pain and bewilderment. We see pictures of the pleasant little houses, the tree-planted neighborhoods targeted by the Hamas savages, and see our own neighborhood, as a bullet-riddled, blood-spattered smoking ruin. I look at pictures of the audience at the all-night music rave, and see my daughter among them, dancing with her friends and having fun, the next minute dragged away dead, or for treatment that used to be described as worse than death. My daughter can look at me or consider her memories of her bed-ridden invalid grandmother, and readily imagine either or both of us cut down mercilessly … and the murderers recording the whole bloody cruelty for posting to social media for the approval and cheers of their friends.

This is an organized and sponsored pogrom the cruelty and viciousness of which hasn’t been seen since medieval times, although the Nazis and Imperial Japanese certainly did their best in Europe and China within the memory of elderly people still alive today.

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Heuristics for Ukraine (and other places)

NB: some of the following is from a recent videoconference that included our own Trent Telenko, who is very much the man of the hour, but some of it is more publicly available, not to mention common sense. First, though, as is my wont, a quadrant diagram to organize my presentation …

I. Theater “Hardware” (physical assets/consequences)

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“The Strategic Genius Behind Allowing Qatari Suitcases of Cash into Gaza”

Via Lex:

Political analysts were likely no less surprised. I’m certainly one of them, having looked on in amazement ever since the reemergence of Hamas violence in early 2018 after three and a half years of quiet. Why did the Israeli government, with Benjamin Netanyahu firmly at its helm, tolerate renewed Hamas missile strikes, then missiles and incendiary balloons, then missiles and incendiary balloons and rioting along the fence dividing Hamas- controlled Gaza and Israel?
 
This is to say nothing of the high-profile visits of the Qatari special envoy, who brought suitcases full of millions of dollar bills to be placed in Hamas coffers—either directly or indirectly with Israel’s permission.
 
[. . .]
 
The mystery was solved on the fourth night of the offensive, when the Israeli Air Force made aviation history by amassing, over the small space of Gaza, 160 fighter jets and other air vehicles to pound and destroy—over a mere 40 minutes—the “Hamas Metro”: a vast array of interlocking tunnels Hamas had dug to protect its command posts, ease the movement of its terrorists, and enable the transport of its missiles and other ordnance.
 
What Netanyahu and the IDF did unto Hezbollah on a much smaller scale two years ago they repeated successfully on a far larger scale against Hamas. Israel, having discovered and then meticulously monitored Hezbollah tunneling activities across the northern border, waited for the expensive tunnels to be dug and then destroyed them just as they were about to be completed. It was Hamas’s turn to be similarly duped.

Read the whole thing.

The Twilight Zone

Well, it appears that the mullahcracy in Iran is still steamed over the death of their military mastermind Quassam Soleimani, the chief of so-called Quds Force – sort of the Iranian SS, I have always thought. On the one-year anniversary of that momentous drone-zap (a consummation quite overdue in my opinion) the president of Iran directly threatened the life of President Trump. Talk is cheap, and Iranian threats of dire revenge are the equivalent of those teeny and nearly worthless Spanish 1-peseta coins, which were struck from aluminum in the early 1990s, about the size of a child’s fingernail and looked like nothing so much as doll money. But still … the militant Muslims of Iran are certainly dedicated and determined sufficiently to have racked up any number of lesser-known and less-protected hits, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this was something more than just tough talk for the benefit of their domestic audience and fans of Islamic mayhem in other countries.

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