Why do Western liberals refuse to see Hamas for what they are, when the terrorists tell us all about themselves, every day

While the Islamists may lie to people for tactical reasons when it comes to their situation on the ground, they have been very honest about their policies and goals. What I cannot understand is how or why Western liberals just can’t believe them. Hamas has told the world that their goal is to expel all of the Jews from the Levant, to make it an Islamic waqf.

Gaza hostages’ fate unknown, Hamas spokesman says

In his first televised appearance for several weeks, Abu Obeida said many of the hostages “may have been killed,” blaming their fate on Israel.

By Alex Winston | Sunday, January 14, 2024 | 8:35 PM Jerusalem time | Updated 9:32 PM Jerusalem time

The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said on Sunday that the fate of many of the remaining 136 Israeli hostages still in captivity has become unknown.

In his first televised appearance for several weeks, Abu Obeida said many of the hostages “may have been killed,” blaming their fate on Israel. Continue reading

Penn State professor thinks that wars should be ‘fair fights’

A liberal friend of mine in the 90s complained during one of our seemingly endless conflicts that “We did the flyin’ while the bad guys did the dyin’,” combitching that we just weren’t fighting fair! For some cockamamie reason, she seemed to think that military conflicts should be fair. Could someone show me a drill sergeant who would train his soldiers that a fair fight was a good idea? Continue reading

Another two bite the dust! Two haters of Jews are out of their jobs

It looked like, unlike former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, Claudine Gay, the President of Harvard University, was going to survive in her job. But she’s gone, gone, gone! From The Harvard Crimson:

Harvard President Claudine Gay resigns, shortest tenure in university history

By Emma H. Haidar and Cam E. Kettles, Crimson Staff Writers | Tuesday, January 2, 2024 |  12;57 PM EST

Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign Tuesday afternoon, bringing an end to the shortest presidency in the University’s history, according to a person with knowledge of the decision.

I’ve got to put the rest of this below the fold, because I simply had to embed Queen’s “Another one bites the dust!” Read on, because it isn’t only Dr Gay who has bitten the dust today! Continue reading

In New York City, the savages protest in support of savagery

When my good friend William Teach wrote, at 8:25 PM EST on Christmas Day, “What’s the over/under that the @nytimes doesn’t bother to cover this, despite being a NY paper? Maybe a tiny blurb on A25. If these were rioting Jews it would already be on the web front page,” I thought that surely, surely!, even The New York Times couldn’t ignore riots. But, Mr Teach was right: at least as of 8:40 AM EST, there were no stories at all on the front page of the Times website concerning the riots, though there was a story, in the “In Case You Missed It” section about halfway down on the right hand side, “New York City, for Some Jews, Feels Newly Tense : With antisemitism and protests spilling onto the streets of New York, the city’s Jewish population is trying to navigate the new contours of its hometown,” a story dated on December 20th, six days ago.

There was an old joke in the city, from the days when people actually read the dead-trees editions of newspapers, that people on the subways used the Times as a cover to hide from people that they were actually reading the New York Post:

Pro-Palestinian protesters chant ‘Christmas is canceled’ while carrying blood-red mock Nativity scene through NYC — scuffles break out, arrests made

By Larry Celona, Reuven Fenton, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, and Patrick Reilly | Christmas Day, December 25, 2023 | 8:25 PM EST

They’re out to “cancel” Christmas.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters converged on Midtown Monday, lugging a blood-red mock Nativity scene and chanting, “Christmas is canceled here.” Continue reading

There’s only one way to win: Israel must stop worrying about the hostages #Hamas hold Hamas, the 'Palestinians,' and the Arabs in general are not part of Western civilization, and we shouldn't be fooled into thinking that they think or act or respond as those of us in the civilized world do.

There’s a line somewhere in Herman Wouk’s “The Winds of War,” in which one of the Henry family, Victor or Byron, responds to demands on Germany as, ‘Isn’t that pretty arrogant, demanding that Germany accept a defeat no one has actually inflicted on them?’ I may have been slightly imprecise with the quote, but I did get the sentiment correct.

And so we come to Hamas and the ‘Palestinian’ Arabs. From London’s The Telegraph:

Hamas leader says hostage deal is ‘all or nothing’

Yahya Sinwar has reportedly insisted on a lasting ceasefire and the release of all Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile figures

by Nataliya Vasilyeva • 21 December 2023 • 7:33 PM

Jerusalem — Hamas’s de-facto leader has said he will only agree to a new truce if it guarantees the release of all Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails, according to reports.

Al Arabi Al Jadidi, a Qatari newspaper, on Thursday quoted an unnamed Egyptian official saying the “leadership of Hamas” had rejected Israel’s offer of a temporary truce in exchange for the release of several dozen Israeli hostages.

Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, insisted on a lasting ceasefire and all Palestinian prisoners being released, including several high-profile figures, the newspaper reported.

Simply put, the distinguished Mr Sinwar is demanding that Israel accept a defeat that no one has inflicted on them. Good luck with that!

Sinwar also reportedly demanded that Israel halt its combat operations in Gaza before the deal goes into effect.

Hamas later on Thursday said it would reject any deals to free more hostages until Israel stops bombing Gaza.

“If Israel wants its prisoners alive, then it has no other options but to stop the aggression and the war,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing.

Let’s tell the truth here: Hamas are directly threatening to kill the remaining hostages if the Israel Defence Force does not halt operations and let Hamas survive. As the #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading left keep whining that the IDF are committing “genocide,” one wonders if it has penetrated their thick skulls that Hamas are threatening the war crime of killing prisoners?

Oh, that’s different, somehow.

There comes a point at which Israel, at which any nation which has some of its citizens held hostage, to force that nation to do something against its own national interests, has to decide that the hostages are simply the unfortunate casualties of war.

The United States learned a hard lesson on this in the 1980s. President Reagan, nice guy that he was, thought that he could win the freedom of American hostages held by the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, through a convoluted arms deal with the terrorists’ sponsor, Iran. And it worked: we got our hostages back.

But we also established a value for taking hostages, and while President Reagan got those captured people back, Hezbollah simply turned around and seized new hostages.

So it is for Israel. Perhaps there could be some sort of cease-fire agreement, and Hamas release all of the hostages they’ve seized, but at the cost of allowing Hamas to survive, and get its top terrorists back. And the next time Hamas tries something — and there will always be a next time with these savages — Hamas will know: there’s real value in seizing civilian hostages.

According to The New York Times, Israel counts 129 people as still being held hostage, though they believe that 21 of them are already dead.

It would have to be a cold-blooded, and horrible, decision to have to take, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ‘war cabinet’ have to decide that these people should all be counted as dead, and not only continue but intensify their attack on Hamas. Israel needs to just plain kill every Hamas leader they can find, regardless of where they are — Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar — and take the actions necessary. Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and all of the top Hamas people need to assume room temperature, to let those younger men who believe they can rise to the top of Hamas that, if they do, they’ll go to meet their 72 virgins.

Israel is a Western democracy, and as conservative as the government are, they are still constrained by the cultural morés of their culture. But Hamas, the ‘Palestinians,’ and the Arabs in general are not part of Western civilization, and we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that they think or act or respond as those of us in the civilized world do.

References

References
1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

Our oh-so-noble left simply cannot comprehend what’s happening in the Levant The Palestinians have a culture with values and motives that are simply outside of the ability of the 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' supporting left to comprehend.

The reports concerning the condition of the Israeli hostages taken on October 7th come from Jewish doctors, so naturally, the Usual Suspects and other pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas people — “people” being a term I am using loosely here — won’t believe them and will dismiss them.

Doctor who treated freed Hamas hostages describes physical, sexual and psychological abuse

By Leslie Stahl and David Morgan | Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023 | 9:30 AM EST

Dr Itai Pessach. Photo via CBS News.

About 100 Israeli hostages, kidnapped during the deadly Hamas raid on Israel, have been released after more than 50 days in captivity. Dr. Itai Pessach (director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv), whose team interviewed and examined many of them, told “CBS News Sunday Morning” the freed hostages were brought to the medical center whether they wanted to come or not.“We thought they would need a buffer from that time in captivity, underground, in the dark, with very little food, with a lot of psychological stress,” he said. “We have to remember that these people have not been around since October 7.” Continue reading

Israel and the Second Amendment

Armed Israeli police, Via Dolorosa, near the fourth Station of the Cross, November 13, 2022. Photo by D R Pico, may be freely used with proper attribution.

Before the October 7th attacks, Israel had nothing like our Second Amendment. Though not a European nation, Israelis have a very much liberal European attitude toward liberty and social controls, and that includes European attitudes on gun control. The Times of Israel noted:

Gun control in Israel is relatively strict, and firearm licenses are generally only granted to those who can show a need for extra security in their line of work or daily life. Meaning, one of the key criteria for a private citizen to receive permission to own a gun is where they live.

We think of Israel as being a heavily armed nation, replete with images of soldiers carrying automatic weapons, and the near-universal military draft for men and women alike, but that’s not the case. Even in the kibbutz near the border with Gaza, most weapons were kept not in private residences, but central armories, and, hit with a surprise attack, few residents had time to arm themselves, and they were met with torture, rape, and murder. The Times of Israel, just three days after the attack, still put a loosening of gun control laws as a “right-wing” issue: Continue reading

In the end, there will be no peace without victory

Sgt Benjamin Netanyahu

So, who should determine Gaza’s future: a doddering old man who, despite being of military age while the United States was fighting in Vietnam, never wore his country’s uniform, or a combat veteran of several actions against the Arabs, serving in the Sayeret Matkal, one of Israel’s top special forces units? Who better knows Israel’s Arab enemies, a man who knows only what he’s been told by a legion of Ivy League graduates, or one who has fought them, face-to-face, and has had to deal with the Arabs for all of his adult life? From The Wall Street Journal:

In Dueling Remarks, Biden and Netanyahu Spar Over Gaza’s Future

Israel’s prime minister says he won’t allow the Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza

By David S. Cloud, Carrie Keller-Lynn, Summer Said, and Andrew Restuccia | Updated, Tuesday, December 12, 2023 | 4:09 PM EST

President Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed Tuesday over who should govern Gaza after the war, in a remarkable public display of differences emerging between the two leaders over the conflict.

Speaking during a fundraiser in Washington, Biden made his toughest remarks since the war began about Netanyahu’s government. He suggested that its hard-line stance has prevented Netanyahu from accepting the Biden administration’s postwar plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza, and that it would also obstruct progress toward political, economic and security arrangements that could spawn a separate Palestinian state—an outcome the U.S. president sees as a long-term solution to the conflict.

If you do not subscribe to the Journal, you can read the article here. Continue reading

Liz Magill is not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down

We have previously reported how University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has completely fouled up the school’s response to the antiSemitism on campus, costing the Ivy League university the good will of its many deep-pocket alumni donors.

Well, she may have just fired herself! From The Philadelphia Inquirer: Continue reading