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I wouldn’t be Benjamin Netanyahu for shekels. But if I were him, I hope I would be able to act with the same resolve he has shown.
In the aftermath of 7th October, once the dust has settled, heads will roll, and Netanyahu’s is likely to be among the first. As Prime Minister at the time he bears ultimate responsibility for the massive intelligence failure that facilitated the slaughter. I don’t know if the doctrine of ministerial responsibility holds any more sway in Israel than it does here; Labor governments, in particular, now pay it little more than lip service. But I imagine, under normal circumstances, Netanyahu would be expected to resign, failing which he would be rolled. That he has not done so, in my view, is not that he is desperately hanging on to the perks of office, but that, despite what individual Israelis think of him, they recognise he is the best man to prosecute the war against Hamas.
Nonetheless, the knives are now out for him with a vengeance. Here is a sample, from The Australian:
Israel was in danger of losing more support globally if it continued its war in Gaza, Foreign Minister Penny Wong warned in an interview on Tuesday.
Speaking at a business summit in Sydney, she said that the world was “rightly sympathetic” to Israel after the terrorist attack on October 7.
“The world was rightly sympathetic and in solidarity with Israel,” she said.
But she said the world was now horrified with the loss of innocent life in Gaza and warned that Israel was in danger of losing more public support if it continued its actions.
Not that Wong’s vacuous advice will cut any ice in Jerusalem, but the waning of President Biden’s support, driven no doubt by the need to get re-elected in November, is more worrying. Biden has said Israel’s planned incursion into Rafah without a plan to evacuate a million Gazans would be a ‘red line’. As he put it:
He has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas. But he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken. He’s hurting … in my view, he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel.
It seems the figure of 30,000 Gazan lives lost is a tipping point for Biden and his administration. It seems an unspecified number of civilian casualties would have been tolerable, but we have now passed that point. Here from a Dow Jones report, by Stephen Kalin, in The Australian:
The U.S. has repeatedly sided with Israel during Security Council votes on the war in Gaza launched by Israel in response to the attacks by Hamas …
In recent weeks, however, as the death toll and suffering in Gaza has become intolerable and Israel has threatened to invade Rafah…,
So, here we are back to the spurious ‘proportional response’ argument, a favourite of Wong. But here’s the point: what Biden, and all the other ‘Israel has a right to defend itself but …’ brigade, do not understand is that this is not a punitive mission, to which the restrictions of a ‘proportional response’ might apply. This is a war for the survival of the State of Israel.
The best way to describe the logic underlying the proportional response argument is that what happened on October 7 was nothing more than just another fixture in some macabre ongoing sporting competition, albeit one rather more deadly than, say, cricket. Hamas always wins the toss and elects to bat, killing a number of Israelis. Once the Israelis have killed a proportional number of Gazans, the umpire blows the whistle, calls a draw, and the teams retire for refreshments and training until the next fixture. The only problem is that Israel never knows when the next fixture is scheduled for. Oh, and that it never actually wanted to play in this league in the first place.
A Times article reprinted in last Weekend Australian claimed that ‘The US President believed that by backing Israel to the hilt, he would be able to restrain his old acquaintance as he unleashed retribution on Hamas for the terrorist atrocity that killed more than 1200 Israelis’. These authors have got it wrong. Netanyahu is not unleashing ‘retribution’.
Let me re-iterate, this is not a punitive expedition. Israel is fighting for its survival, and it is entitled to do so to the maximum extent possible under the rules of war. Those rules do not specify an acceptable limit of civilian casualties. They say that purely civilian areas, such as hospitals and residential areas are protected, but that any military objective, even one which contains civilians, may be targeted. That said, the attacking force would have to satisfy itself, even be able to convince an international tribunal, that the military gain from any individual attack justified the associated casualties. For example, that the target could not simply be bypassed and isolated.
That degree of discretion becomes problematic when the enemy deliberately shields its personnel and weapons within the civilian infrastructure, and one of its acknowledged strategies is to facilitate maximum civilian casualties in order to alienate support for its adversary. Precisely what is happening.
To add some context, during World War Two, the West, as we know it, was also fighting for its survival. During that war, some 50 million to 70 million people were killed, most of them civilians. Poland alone lost, reportedly, about 5.5 million civilians. The USSR lost somewhere between 5 and 10 million. Germany lost 1.5 million to 3 million. Japan did well, losing only some 800,000. That victory took six years. Israel has been fighting for its existence for 75 years. And Arab deaths over this time pale into insignificance compared to the carnage of World War Two.
Given that he probably no longer has a political career to worry about, Netanyahu is probably best placed to handle the opprobrium that is currently unleashed upon Israel. He will do what is necessary. And the Israelis can thank God for that.
I don’t know how much sleep Netanyahu loses over 30,000 Gazan deaths – a disputed figure in any case, but that is not the point. However, I’m guessing he would temper his natural humanitarian concern with the knowledge that many, maybe most, of these civilians are not entirely ‘innocent’, despite the fact that they do not actually carry weapons. They elected Hamas and, reportedly, a majority of them still support Hamas. They allow their children to be indoctrinated and recruited by Hamas and they celebrate their deaths as ‘martyrs’. Still, I am sure he deplores these civilian deaths and would prefer they did not happen. And that he will take all practical measures to prevent them.
But that’s not his greatest moral dilemma.
As well as internationally, Netanyahu is under pressure domestically over the natural desire of families to have the remaining hostages returned. The international community don’t seem to care that much about them. Release of the remaining hostages is almost an afterthought in the pronouncements of those such as Wong. For many years the doctrine in the West was that ‘we will not negotiate with terrorists’. Meaning that hostages were at the mercy of their captors. That the only hope for hostages, short of being released by their captors, was to be freed in a rescue mission, a risky operation in which some, or all, of the hostages might be killed. That doctrine has been weakened in recent years. But it seems Netanyahu has revived it, and is now employing it in Gaza. That requires extreme mental toughness, and it is on this issue that I return to my original point that I would not want to be in his shoes. I do concede that this situation is much more fraught than that which applied, for example, at Entebbe in 1976, where the hostages were concentrated in one place and the Israelis knew where they were. But if you accept that, through your decisions, you must take the lives of some enemy civilians in order to achieve your strategic objective, you must also accept that you will incur losses within your own innocent populace, just as President Zelensky has done in the Ukraine. That’s the burden of leadership.
Recently, US Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, said that Netanyahu is the greatest obstacle to peace in the area. What he means by ‘peace’ is ‘business as usual’. That is the ‘proportional response’ position.
If I were Netanyahu and somebody urged upon me the need for a proportional response, my reply would be, ‘Proportional response? Of course, not a problem. Let me know when I get to six million’.
Try getting any in the MSM, including the Murdoch media, to publish a question about what would be an acceptable proportional response by Israel to the Hamas murders of Jewish babies on 7 October. Apparently it doesn’t comply with any of their commenting guidelines to ask proportionality advocates to say how many Palestinian babies it would be acceptable for Israel to kill in its response. or how Israel could in an acceptable way select those Palestinian babies.
A good article Peter. I too don’t agree with words like “retribution” and “response” when the Israelis are engaged in self defence.
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On the other hand I agonize about the civilian deaths and my heart is torn when I see the suffering of the children. But I know that it is caused by this cancer that is Hamas. It could all end in an instant if Hamas would release the hostages, recognize Israel and adopt peace.
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I am further saddened that the UN agency has, in the past, allowed itself to be a tool of Hamas in sowing hatred against Israel in its schools.
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I hope that Gazans now have a realization that they made a bad choice in voting for Hamas. Once that Hamas cancer is removed and given time, Gazans may realize that peace is a better alternative than hatred.
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Year upon year and decade upon decade of attacks against Israel, aided by a one eyed UN have now borne the inevitable sour fruit. I pray that this time it will end, not with the conflagration that Hamas was engineering but with progress towards peace for both Gazans and Israelis.
Thank you Brian.
‘I take not on me here as a physician,
Nor do I as an enemy of peace
Troop in the thongs of military men …
I have in equal balance justly weighed
What wrong our arms may do,
what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.’
The Archbishop of York in 2 Henry IV, 4.1.60-69
Very lucidly articulated, Peter. It bothers me no end, how almost nobody admits that all it would take to have a ceasefire is for Hamas to hand over the hostages. So simple, especially if so many innocent Palestinian lives could be preserved. Why is Hamas holding on to them all this time? What plans could they possibly have for those hostages? Surely it’s obvious that Israel, on this occasion and at long last, has finally realised that negotiating over hostages is a loser’s ploy in the long-term. They’re now aiming for a check-mate.
BTW, for a graphic representation of what Israel faced in the Yom Kippur war of 1973, the movie “Golda” is now showing in cinemas, and I can’t recommend it highly enough — gripping stuff, and presumably close to the facts.
And all it would take for an enduring peace is for Hamas to concede Israel’s right to exist, instead of insisting upon the obliteration of Israel by force and the refusal of all negotiation.
And Chuck Schumer says that Netanyahu is “the greatest obstacle to peace in the area”. Really. More of an obstacle than Hamas?
Thank you Paul.
A few things to consider regarding Netanyahu.
1 – Hamas documents show the October 7th slaughters began planning two years ago. That’s during the term of prime ministers Bennet and Lapid, during the gap in the series of elections when Netanyahu was out of office, and that Israeli military and intelligence were advised about it. No-one knew Netanyahu would again be elected to prime minister. Hamas’s plans assumed a wishy-washy leadership of Israel by Benne and Lapid with a coallition that included for the first time ever an Arab party.
2 – Within a week of the start of Netanyahu’s current election at the very end of 2023 the country was split over judicial reform with heads of intelligence and military on the side of those who wished to depose Netanyahu.
3 – Soon after October 7th the heads of Israeli military and intelligence issued an appology for being unprepared. Netanyahu didn’t join them in their apology. Why?
4 – It’s possible Netanyahu wasn’t fully advised of Hamas’s plans, where both military and intelligence thought it would be just another effort at breaching the fence, and that not being prepared during Simchat Torah would help unseat Netanyahu.
5 – It’s fairly certain nothing like these points will be canvassed because it’s a great excuse to dispose of Natanyahu in disgrace, in parallel with the trick to depose Trump with the apparent disgrace of January 6th.
6 – This includes suppositions, but even so, is worthy of consideration. Why didn’t Netanyahu join the heads of intelligence and military in theor apology to the nation?
Good points Katzenjammer, but, while I sympathize with him, Netanyahu had the ultimate responsibility.
Point 4 – Is Netanyahu responsible if (big if) – if he was purposefully not informed?
Theoretically, under the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, it doesn’t matter.
And here in Australia we have Senator Mehreen Faruqi leading the antisemitic charge.
Rather Faruqi, from Lahore, should help the minorities currently being brutally and shockingly persecuted in Pakistan.
But no – those persecutors – from Moscow, from Gaza, from Pakistan, from . . are from the ‘Religion of Peace’ so their persecutions must be ignored – even celebrated.
President Biden’s two state solution – Nevada and Wisconsin.
And, Mehreen Faruqi, who was it who murdered the 137 in Moscow ?
None other than, > “ISIS-K, short for Islamic State Khorasan Province, is a regional affiliate of the larger Islamic State group. The affiliate group operates primarily in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.”
(dot) theconversation.com/how-moscow-terror-attack-fits-isis-k-strategy-to-widen-agenda-take-fight-to-its-perceived-enemies-226469
Mike, I wouldn’t rush in and jump to conclusions about the Moscow attack. Gary Kasparov, in today’s Australian (26/3/24), puts forward a pretty strong case for this being a false flag job. Putin and his FSB thugs definitely have a track record in this department; 137 Russian lives, or even a few million for that matter, are nothing when it boils down to Putin’s survival and holding onto power.
ISIS Hits Russia
But why?
March 25, 2024 by Robert Spencer
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Ramadan is the pious month of ‘Jihad-o-Qital’ (Jihad and killing). Those who attain martyrdom while waging Jihad, doors of heaven remain open.
That means that as the West’s most respected analysts look everywhere except in Islam for the reasons behind the massacre in Russia, the jihads will keep plotting more bloodshed and murder.
frontpagemag.com/isis-hits-russia/
I think one must be a little guarded as to whether the anti-Netanyahu forces are nit infact a fifth column seeking to destabilise the government and therefore the war effort.
Furthermore, whoever ultimately masterminded the ‘ISIS claimed’ terrorist attack in Russia a couple of days ago (and I have no real idea) – it should not be excluded from an open mind that this is an attempt by the righteous and good (many of whom are part of the Western political Left) within the narrative of the colonised and occupied ‘Islamic world’ to essentially paint Putin and Netanyahu into the same corner – the evil invading colonialists … blah blah blah .. you know how the rest goes.
I think your last paragraph says it all; I agree with it.
Thank you very much, Peter O’Brien, for laying out the plain, bare facts of this situation: Israel is fighting for her very survival. undoubtedly against certain strains of progressivism (pro-Islam) in her own nation. But part of the insanity of the left is to extol terrorist ideologies. Palestinian children are inculcated with hatred of Jews from infancy. Israel made it clear Northern Gaza would have to be demolished in order to destroy Hamas infrastructure. Who or what is keeping civilians in the line of pre-warned fire? To call for a ceasefire is a tacit acknowledgement that both sides are capable of detente – but Hamas is not, not, not.
I grit my teeth whenever parts of The Australian’s editorials are quoted. I cancelled my sub during Covid, when the Oz showed itself incapable of being anything other than a propaganda rag for the global shutdown ideology. To quote Penny Wong after she threw a small fortune of taxpayers’ hard-earned to the terrorists in Gaza is shameful.
Maryse, you say: “Palestinian children are inculcated with hatred of Jews from infancy.” Well, today’s Oz tells us that Muslim kids here are also undergoing identical brainwashing, so the phenomenon is a bit more global. Who knows where it will all lead? Aren’t we lucky to have such a clever and brave Pime Minister to put an end to this dangerous activity and ensure our harmonious and peaceful future? Hooray for Multiculturalism!
You’re mad. The suffering of European Jews during the great cataclysm may have been used to justify to the United Nations the partitioning of Palestine in 1948, but the Palestinians can justly argue that this had NOTHING to do with them. Zionists wanted the Holy Land as a homeland for Jews and the current ooccupants be damned. This bloodthirsty suggestion that there is no effective limit to the barbarism which can be justified by a single, marginally effective raid, is a new low in the unhinged propaganda here.
This was meant in reply to Mr Spong although as Mr O’Brien penned that last paragraph it could equally apply to him.
Do the terms irony or hyperbole mean anything to you, David?
Peter,
I don’t read his postings, but my answer to questions such as yours is usually along the line
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Yes, but I am pedantic and I heed Poe’s Law which says that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.
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Re pedantic – Dave Penberthy wrote to me:
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Good on you Len. Pedantry is important. It keeps us accurate and honest!
All the Best, Dave.
Sure I understand those terms but then I don’t find mass murder funny.
“If I were Netanyahu and somebody urged upon me the need for a proportional response, my reply would be, ‘Proportional response? Of course, not a problem. Let me know when I get to six million’.”
Seems more like deadly earnest and sickeningly bad taste to me. If the war was against Germany then it might perhaps make sense but then Germany, as the rest of the West, is being destroyed by other means, preeminently cultural distortion.
“Bloodthirsty”? “Barbarism”? This from someone who claims that the “ingenious, fractious, restless, warlike white folk” of the Third Reich were on a noble crusade to save the world from Bolshevism, but were thwarted by world jewry. Nauseating. And do give over with the faux-jewish screen name. I’ve suggested before that “Horst Wessel” would fit the bill admirably.
That’s a lot of hot air coming out of your bellows there Sindri, signifying very little. I don’t believe I’ve promoted the idea of Germany struggling to defeat Bolshevism. but it doesn’t seem too far-fetched given the history of communist subversion throughout Europe between the wars.
“One possible lesson from 1939-1945 might be that German nationalism forestalled Soviet Bolshevism’s conquest of Eastern Europe and prevented its total overrun of Central and Western Europe. Certainly this is what most German soldiers understood their mission to be.”
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/israel/2023/11/the-irrelevance-of-proportionality/
A hit, a very palpable hit. I did suggest four months ago that German soldiers certainly and no doubt many others on the losing side understood themselves to be battling Bolshevism and amazingly the issuance of such an anodyne observation was not permanently lodged in my mind. Thank you Sindri for dusting off the archives. I certainly did not say what YOU claimed however (skilled archivist though you be).
March 28, 2024
And what were they fighting for the almost two years before Hitler broke the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
Excellent point!
I’m sure those nice boys thought they were fighting Bolshevism when they blew London to smithereens.
Five million copies of Mein Kampf had been sold by 1939. They understood themselves to be defending themselves from France and Britain which were both representative democracies and hence subject to strong plutocratic influence. The attack on Poland was to defend the interests of Volksdeutsche who had been persecuted in W. Prussia and to reunite the Reich as it had stood in 1914. France and Britain declared war but did very little in defence of Poland. When the Soviets invaded from the East two weeks later, some desultory comdemnation was all that could be mustered. The ultimate outcome was the demise of the French and British Empires and their control over their own homelands.
“Subject strong plutocratic influence”. By which he means Jews, of course. He can’t even speak straight. What a rancid individual.
Many Jews certainly but not exclusively. A review of our interactions would find the ad hominems are just about all being served from your court. This is just another one.
Everyone seems to have forgotten where Hamas got all its mulla to actually function as it does . Not all the resources came from Iran . Much of it was donated by western governments as Palestinian “aid” , including Australia .This has to stop immediately.
And they didn’t vote for Churchill after WW11 and he was indeed a hero. There is no doubt that Benjamin Netanyahu is the very best person for this massive job of saving Israel and the Jewish people after the most devastating slaughter of 1,200 men, women and children by the Hamas Islamic Jihadists on the 7th October 2023. He and the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) are trying to eliminate the vile Hamas murderers and rescue ALL the hostages including the Americans.
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The Times of Israel on March 20th 2024 published a Poll:-
“Over 70% of Palestinians still maintain Hamas ‘correct’ to commit October 7 atrocities”.
Never forget that under Islamic sharia law, ONLY the monoculture of Islam exists which discriminates against all infidels and all other cultures.
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There must be no more ceasefires to appease the pro-Islamic propagandists whose mantra is, “Death to Israel; Death to America; Kill the kaffirs/ infidels/ unbelievers/ Christians; From the river to the sea; Gas the Jews; Annihilate the State of Israel; Genocide against the Jewish people etc”
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The IDF must finish their mammoth task of taking out the Hamas savages in Gaza and The West Bank. The IDF MUST take control of Gaza and The West Bank. Never forget that Israel and Gaza were at peace the 7th October 2023. The Israelis must never ever return control to the Islamic Jihadis who all adhere to the murderous teachings of Muhammad.
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To understand the precarious situation for the Israelis, listen to:-
(1) Yair Pinto on TBN Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmDVubNRpQ&t=2s
You will understand how the Hamas Islamic Jihadis use the Palestinian people and children as pawns in their terrorist attacks on Israel.
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(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccHJ4BKGGQk
My State: The TRUTH About the Al-Aqsa Mosque vs. Lies & MISCONCEPTIONS You’ve Been Told/TBN Israel
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(3) https://www.foxnews.com/video/6349594250112
Mark Levin:- You have to stand up to tyranny
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(4) Acts of Islamic Terrorism from September 11th 2001 right up to the present.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com
Peter, how about the terms “pot”, “kettle”, “black”. I mean such as arguments as “This is a war for the survival of the State of Israel.” Seriously? Israel lost 12000 to covid, no one has alleged that amounted to an existential crisis. Israel will one day be fighting for its existence, but that is somewhere down the track. Israel bombs Gaza and the West Bank, and Lebanon, with impugnity when ever it feels like, but no on argues that the Palestinians and the Lebanese are fighting for their existence.
Occidental, surely you can’t be serious? COVID is a transient illness caused by viral infection, that can be rationally understood, kills mainly oldies with already limited life expectancies, has natural limits and can be controlled by vaccination. The religion-driven mission statement of Hamas (and other Iranian proxies) is to eliminate Israel and all Jews, totally. The present survivors of the IDF’s campaign glorify their dead as martyrs, so they’re all heroes rather than victims. They’re in it for the duration, without question. Give them time, and the death toll should far exceed the 6 million dead Jews you might have in mind. The bombings of “Gaza and the West Bank, and Lebanon, with impugnity” are not without continued provocation — and are punished by constant rocket barrages, the October 7th attack, as well as endless UN recriminations.
Pmprociv, I was referring to the dead from COVID, merely to put in to perspective the extent of the death toll of the October 7 attacks. In no way did those attacks pressage an existential fight for Israel as a nation. Any argument that the current events in Gazza is a fight by Israel for its existence is hyperbole.
So Israelis don’t brainwash their children into thinking that Palestinians are lesser human beings ?
Israel has overwhelming military power .and that power has completely corrupted the way they deal with the Palestinians .
They have been bombing and destroying with explosives and bulldozers all the infrastructure and housing of the Palestinians .
Using terror tactics to try and force the Palestinians to leave Gaza and never return .
Genocide is the ugly face of Ethnic Cleansing .
Babies and children dying of starvation and disease because of the blockade by Israel is the Ugly face of the Genocide .
The USA is deeply complicit in this historical War crime .Pretending deep concern about the death of civilians but sending munitions on an emergency basis to the Israelis .
Dropping inconsequential amounts of aid while using their veto in the security council against a Ceasefire.
Only now they are counting the number of their citizens that are protesting are they pretending to be trying to restrain Israel .
The USA could stop this war overnight if they told Netanyahu that they would stop suppling weapons and munitions and were going to stop all aid to Israel .
We know that will not happen because of the hold the Zionist lobby has over politics in the USA .
Australia should never let any of its citizens that have gone to Israel to fight in the IDF return to this country again .
By its actions from the very beginning Israel has shown it is a terrorist regime .
The pro Israel propaganda on here is sickening .
A Genocide is taking place for all the world to see and none of the pro Zionist Spin can alter that Fact .
John, what do you think of the often heard statement: “Disarm Israel, and it will quickly disappear off the map; disarm the Arabs, and we’ll have peace in the Middle East”?
Socialist tools such as John Daniels and Occidental emit the propaganda necessary for the destruction of Western culture. Israel is an ideal which represents conservative western religion and morality, standing in the way of the chaos that would otherwise bring destruction not just to the Middle East but more importantly the West (because the left couldn’t care less about the ideal of ‘Palestine’ in reality). Therefore Israel/Judaism is now the next edifice/statue/institution to be desecrated and torn down by the left.
Hear, hear! The surrounding Arab states couldn’t give a stuff about Palestinians, either, judging by the way they’re all rushing in to help, and to take in refugees (OK, Iran’s supplying weapons, but it’s not Arab). The Palestinian enclaves are a most convenient chronic sore for them to use as a tool to whip Israel — just like our remote Aboriginal communities must be kept to serve the Indigenous Victimhood Industry, and show the world how racist Australia is.
I would like to know what the “ideal” is that you seem so fond of. A nation that grows by taking the land of stateless people and forcing them into two concentration camps, a state that stands for a race and culture, to the exclusion of the native inhabitants. A nation that acquires weapons of mass destruction and shares its knowledge with some of the most reviled nations on earth?
A country that carries out extrajudicial killings and assassinations in foreign countries? In any sane world Israel would be in the same category as North Korea and Russia.
‘…to the exclusion of the native inhabitants.’ Thats what I love about the Pro-Palestinian crowd they are almost to a person ahistorical shills. Palestine is a region not a people. ‘Palestinian People’ is a political invention from the 1920’s. The state of Palestine did not exist until 1988 a full 40 years after the re-annexation of Israel on the territory that was formerly Ancient Israel and Judea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(region)
March 27, 2024
Israel has excluded the “native inhabitants” of Israel? That’s a good one. So is the claim that the Palestinians are in “concentration camps” when many Gazans worked in Israel before October 7. Just like residents of Ravensbruck commuted into Berlin for work, right?
My view is that Netanyahu is a good patriotic Jew and Israeli and is a fighter with good nerve, making him the best type of leader for destroying the Hamas terrorists and their various supporters and look alikes.
Israeli politics and the demos at large does not of course consist entirely of people like this, and some seem to be are out to undermine not only him, but the very Nation itself, a bit like what is happening in America I think, albeit under different circumstances.
It needs a man of steel to stay the path and not become unnerved, such as a man like Netanyahu in Israel, and Donald Trump in the USA while having the political nous to carry enough of a majority with him.
imagine if a doctor said “of course we want to remove that cancer, but we can’t afford to kill any innocent cells in your body”.
The existence of terrorist organisations imperils humanity as a whole.
“the Bolshevik regime in which Jews played a pre-eminent part in the destruction of the Russian, Ukrainian, Baltic and Polish middle and upper classes”
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/israel/2023/11/no-upper-limit-in-the-rules-of-war/
“The ingenious, fractious, restless, warlike white folks are an unwanted liability for the world controllers”
“However Britain [in WW2] was in the process of destroying herself in a Jewish cause”
When I questioned this remark you said:
“‘Britain was destroying herself in a Jewish cause’ means Britain was spending her treasure and losing any chance of retaining her position as a great power in fighting against Germany, which the vast preponderance of Jewish leaders worldwide wanted destroyed.”
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/11/the-problem-of-islam-in-a-multicultural-society/
Just a selection.
Perhaps needless to say, the above comments I have quoted are not my views, but those of “David Isaac”, posted in response to his disingenuous denial above.
Those links are all well worth following and I would encourage all those interested to review what was being said at the end of last year. I’d miss it if you stopped calling me Horst and exhorting me to change my name. Remember it means ‘beloved of God’, ‘Joy, laughter’. All good fun. ‘Sticks and stones’ and all that.
Jolly good, and thank you for your insights about those nice boys in the Gestapo thinking they were on a mission to fight Bolshevism. I’m sure that when they were torturing members of the Norwegian resistance at Arkivet, including women, they leaned down to the gurney and whispered “don’t feel bad, you’re helping to fight Bolshevism”, and it made the victims feel a whole lot better.
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I don’t know this story of yours from Norway but I do know rhat elements of the Allied side were quite as prepared to use torture and terror bombing as the Germans may have been and exquisitely prepared to mould post-war narratives to obscure their misdeeds. As reasoned arguments began to gain sway laws were passed to ensure that Germany, the rest of Europe and increasingly the ‘victorious’ Anglosphere are now unable to freely discuss certain canonical events. If we can not speak freely we cannot be free.
“This story of yours from Norway”. I would be charitable and just say you’re ignorant, but I feel sure it’s disingenuousness in your case.
Those few on this site who are denigrating the people of Israel, the IDF and Benjamin Netanyahu are either ignorant, brainwashed or Islamists..
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These are facts about islam:-
* Islamic mosques are the organisational centres for Islamic terrorism.
* Imams, muftis and mullahs brainwash and indoctrinate the Islamists in the mosques to kill the kaffirs/ infidels i.e. Jews, Christians, non-believers.
* children born into Islamic families are radicalised from birth and it is reinforced by indoctrination and brainwashing all their lives inside the mosques by the imams, mullahs and muftis.
* all Islamists are allowed to lie to further the cause of Islam. It is called Taqiyya. So telling lies about what the Islamic Jihadis are doing to the Palestinians and using them as pawns in the Gaza war, is just par for the course.
* Islamists are taught in their mosques that they and their families will go straight to heaven if they die martyrs whilst carrying out jihad. An Islamic mother with many children has a powerful incentive to want one of her sons to die as a martyr.
* the doctrine of Islam is set out in the Koran, Hadith and Sira.
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How ignorant and dangerous are people in the Democratic free countries of the West who think that Islamists and Islamic Jihadis should be appeased. For the sake of freedom and the free world, it is time to understand the horrors that the people of Israel had to face on October the 7th 2023, and to support their mammoth efforts to eliminate the perpetrators of those atrocities and bring home the long-suffering hostages.
Israel is in the process of ethnic cleansing a land which it has appropriated by force, after gaining a foothold through international influence and shrewd diplomacy, based on a victimhood narrative which it is now a criminal offence to question publicly in any European country.
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Yes, radical Islamists are a threat to more secular Muslims and to other peoples who share territory with them. Israel’s actions are calculated to send the Gazans to the West with a burning hatred for us as well as them. Other Muslims around the world will also grow in hatred of the ever more ludicrously depraved West. It’s high time Bibi read the New Testament, started washing some feet and made amends to the families he has destroyed. He won’t do this because the Hamas raid was exactly the excuse he needed to finish the job started in 1948. That’s understandable. What is difficult to understand is the position of this journal and so many of its commenters, which prioritises Israel’s growth strategy over the well-being of the West they claim to stand for. It only makes sense to see Quadrant, masquerading as a journal of high Australian culture, as ultimately a dedicated Zionist mouthpiece, ensuring frustrated ‘conservatives’ don’t stray off the reservation.
It’s amazing, David, that you can see all this, but poor, naive Hamas cannot. How could its leaders have possibly foreseen that the IDF would react so viciously to its innocent gesture of perfectly reasonable protest on October 7th? How could they have not known that Israel is such a genocidal nation? Now the brave Hamas freedom-fighters are given little choice but to hide among the Gaza population, or disguise themselves as health-workers in Gaza hospitals. Even their painstakingly, lovingly built escape tunnels are being blocked and destroyed by the cruel IDF. The UN must do something . . .
Yes pmprociv On the other hand of course the Hamas leaders, well knew that October 7th, after years of indiscriminate and ineffectual rocket attacks, would goad Israel to finally take its current self defence measures Hamas leaders well knew that they had no hope of overthrowing Israel militarily, so their October 7th object must only have been to spark a violent Middle East conflagration or perhaps a world conflagration. Hamas is such a despicable organisation that it deliberately put its brother and sister Palestinians and their children in the horrible position they are in today.
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Hamas and its sympathisers are alone to blame for all that is happening. I hope that Palestinians will eventually come to realise this. So far it appears that the Arab nations know it.
Your first paragraph regarding the formation of Israel is an accurate description of the circumstances surrounding Israels birth. I find it interesting that many conservatives here hardly mention that the UK, France, and the US were initially opposed to the zionist cause. It was really after it became a fait accompli, somewhere in the 60’s and 70’s that most Western governments got on the band wagon so to speak.
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For those governments dealing with Israel was easier than dealing with the arab states. For the UK and France it they “owed” Israel over the suez crisis. For the US, they could play both sides of the game by backing Israel against the arabs who were being forced by their own populations to engage Israel, and also back the Saudis in their quest for Arab dominance. The fact that evangelical christians backed this support was icing on the cake.
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What motivates many conservatives, particularly the white picket fence variety so common here, is their fear of Islamic people. It is fascinating that otherwise intelligent people just lose their logic connections when the word Muslim is mentioned. When you try to reason with them they start ranting about socialists and leftists. I am sure if the majority of Palestinians were christian, the attitudes of the Zionist supporters here would be somewhat different.
If the majority of Palestinians were Christians,
1. they wouldn’t have the bizarre, pathological hatred of jews and Israel that they believe is scripturally based, and which is manifest in (for example) Article 7 of Hamas’ founding Charter;
2. the Gazans wouldn’t have elected Hamas;
3. the PLO would not exist; and
3. enduring peace and a stable two-state solution would have existed for decades.
Well who knows what would have happened if most Palestinians were Christian.
As to a pathological hatred of Jews, were the Germans by any chance Christian? What of their partners in crime -Italians, Vichy, Austrians, Belgians, in fact any of the Europeans that handed over their Jews. Many anti semites in Christian countries historically did base their prejudice on scripture, as the Jews being the murderers of Christ.
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Do tell me about the PLO, who to the best of my knowledge have always been regarded as a secular resistance force or terrorist organisation, not dissimilar to the IRA.
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If Christians can form the IRA I can not believe they would have stood by as they were being ethnically cleansed and dispossessed from their ancestral lands without putting up a fight. Atleast, I hope they would have put up a fight.
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But one thing I know for sure is that the bigots on this site would have to find a different basis to support Israel, than just falling back on their pathological fear of everything Muslim.
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Finally your utopian comment about a peaceful two state solution is risible without an example. Name one instance when a Christian nation or community has peacefully accepted forced dispossession. I am not holding my breath.
All good questions Occidental, but as to your first one, you’re mixing up history with the situation currently on the ground. When Islamists operating in 2024 are criticised for their reliance on what they claim to be scriptural justifications for grotesque violence or jew-hatred, progressives are forever sanctimoniously and absurdly pointing out violent passages in Leviticus, or historical jew-hatred, or some such (not that I’m comparing you to them). But it’s 2024. How many majority Christian nations, or contemporary terrorist organisations, insist upon violent punishments from the Old Testament, or maintain blood libels, or the idea that Jews should be killed or persecuted because they murdered Christ? None.
The PLO is a supposedly secular organisation, but what does that have to do with my speculation? I doubt that it would exist if the Palestinians were majority Christian. As for “Christians forming the IRA” this is an actual furphy. The IRA does fight under the banner of Christ. It does not purport to have the contents of the Bible as its guiding principle. Hamas and violent Islamists do.
Of course you’re right, what an (entirely hypothetical) majority Christian Palestinian population would do is speculation, but your original comment was that a majority Christian Palestinian population would not face the same opprobrium from commenters here. That suggestion contained within it an assumption, that such a population would be fighting and resisting Israel as the actual Palestinians are doing. Speculation on both sides.
I forgot to add, your last question, where you describe my observations as “risible”. The vice of your argument is that it does not allow for any characterisation of the circumstances in the middle east as other than “forced dispossession”, by which you necessarily mean on violent and extremely unjust terms. I don’t accept that characterisation for a start.
Well Sindri I assume you can not give me an example of a large Christian community rolling over after dispossession from their ancestral homeland. So, by all means for the sake of argument give me an example (go back the full 2000 years) of a similar situation where a cultural or racial group have moved to a given location and the resident Christians have sold or surrendered their home land and then peacefully coexisted with the newcommers. Again I wont hold my breath.
That’s a very different proposition from your scenario of “forced dispossession”, with the necessary concomitant of violence and injustice. I still don’t accept your characterisation of what happened as “dispossession from their ancestral homeland” or the resident having “surrendered their homeland.” But for the sake of the argument: I’m not a historian and I wouldn’t know where to start looking, but there may well be instances of one community intruding upon land where another lives and the two communities wholly or largely coexisting.
Sindri I called your hypothetical “ risible” because it is contrary to the whole trend in history. Human beings generally and Christian peoples especially (quite ironic), dont offer the olive branch in those circumstances. I realise most of the Israel fan brigade prefer some other nebulous not particularly well articulated narrative, about Israels founding. As in arriving after WW2 on some freighter to find this uninhabited land save for a few bedouin. Then, after establishing their kibbutz these dastardly arab islamists sprung out of the soil from no where screaming “theft”. You tell me how it happened in any other way save dispossession.- forced dispossession. I am atleast open to new information.
@Occidental
‘Well Sindri I assume you can not give me an example of a large Christian community rolling over after dispossession from their ancestral homeland. ‘
If I may, there are many examples of this happening simultaneously and Australia is one. The British and Irish Australians of the first 160 years of our history have declined from 90% to 51% in sixty years. Subject to constant demoralisation in the public sphere and anti-Anglo and anti-Christian indoctrination in educational and other institutions, they are governed by a resentful international socialist Italo-Irish bastard and his lady-loving Malaysian Chinese-Anglo-Australian foreign minister. Is this a Christian country? Dispossessed enough for you? If not see how things are after another twenty years of 500k/year immigration. Rolling over when you’re paralysed by liberalism is just the right thiing do. It’s hard to see a road back for the people who used to be the sole possessors of the sobriquet Australians.; only, perhaps, if they are able ro cast off all rhe fake guilt and reassert their right to possess the land taken from the conquered stone age folk.
MargieCJ, you’re only stating what’s patently obvious to many of us. Sadly, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see — who are often charged up with hatred, and/or ideology. Anyone mention “useful idiots”?
Thank you pmprociv for your kind words.
The following program by Alan Dershowitz (27.3.2024) gives a very up to date view of what the Israelis think of that shocking day on October 7th 2023, and are united in the need to eliminate the Hamas Islamic Jihadis who were fully responsible for the horrific carnage:-
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO8pqD6t9ic
The Dershow With Alan Dershowitz
“Hamas must be eliminated…… There is NO famine in Gaza.”
Fair go, MargieCJ ‘s post is a load of bigoted codswallop. The word Palestinian crops up in the post just once. Islam and derivatives pop up 14 times and imams, mosques Jihadis mullas and muftis another 20 or so times. Why can people not use simple logic to defend Israel’s right to behave in the way it does without going down a redneck wet dream of slaughtering the muslims.
Or the Islamists and their apologists wet dream of slaughtering Israelis, and British and American and French and German and Russian and Australian citizens. Given that Hamas is a proxy of Iran and was born out of the Muslim brotherhood – your comment is about as ignorant as they come.
Thank you, Occidental, for the data you derived from my comment. I am very pleased to offer you a statistical analysis which clearly explains it.
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Israel is a very small landmass. It is only about 8,400 square miles.
The mostly Islamic Middle East is many times larger at about 5,000,000 square miles.
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The Islamic population of the Middle East is about 315,000,000.
The population of Israel is only about 7,100,000.
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The great majority of Palestinians are Islamists who comprise 85% of the population of the West Bank, when including Israeli settlers, and 99% of the population of the Gaza Strip. The largest denomination among Palestinian Muslims are Sunnis, comprising 98–99% of the total Islamic population.
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There you have it Occidental, the “simple logic”.
You are half right.
Thank you Occidental, I am only “half right” because I left out my conclusion.
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It must be understood that there are Islamic Jihadis with various names e.g. Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qa’ida, Islamic State etc., who carry out the murderous and heinous terrorism, and there are all the other Islamists who MUST support the Islamic Jihadis.
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Therefore given the facts that Israel is a very small landmass in the very large landmass of the Middle east; and given the facts that there are only about 7 million Jews surrounded by about 315 million Islamists who want them annihilated, there must be no more ceasefires to appease the Islamists all over the world whose mantra is, “Death to Israel; Death to America; Kill the kaffirs/ infidels/ unbelievers/ Christians; From the river to the sea; Gas the Jews; Annihilate the State of Israel; Genocide against the Jewish people etc.”
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The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) must finish their mammoth task of taking out the Hamas Islamic Jihadi savages in Gaza and The West Bank. The IDF MUST then take control of Gaza and The West Bank. They must never ever return control to the Islamists who all must adhere to the murderous teachings of Muhammad and want the Israelis obliterated.
I agree MargieCJ.
Roger Scruton in his book “A Land Held Hostage Lebanon and the West” says that the other word for systematic concealment of doctrine is ‘Ketman’ and goes on to confirm in his notes that it is probably of Shi’ite origin with the word and the activity it represents being studied in the C19 by Gobineau, during his journey in Persia.
We can go on picking apart the rights and wrongs of the establishment of the nation of Israel until Hell freezes over, but that offers no guidance as to how to deal with today’s situation, especially with all the angst and BS that’s flooded the scene. Step back for the broad picture: Israel occupies just 0.2% of the Middle East land area, the remainder taken by its Arab neighbours. Israel’s population, including the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, comprises just 2% of the ME total. Surely it would be reasonable for those Arab states to accept its Muslim brothers and sisters as refugees? Why is not one opening its doors to the Palestinians? Their agenda is not even hidden . . .