(L-R) Sagui Dekel Chen, Iair Horn, and Alexander Sasha Troufanov on stage with Hamas terrorists in Khan Yunis, February 15, 2025.
Despite saying they would not release any hostages this week because Israel had violated the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas released three hostages today. Alexander Sasha Troufanov, Sagui Dekel Chen, and Iair Horn were transferred to Israeli custody after 498 days in the hands of Hamas.
Today’s release was uncertain until it actually happened. As I wrote the other day, Hamas was not going to release any hostages this week. It looks like they blinked, at least a little. Considering the statements from President Trump about the situation of late, I’m surprised they did not release more.
In a statement released on Truth Social, the President made it clear he thought Hamas should have released all the hostages today, but three is better than none. He also made a point of saying that Bibi Netanyahu and Israel had the lead in the decisions about it and the US would have Israel’s back regardless.
Hamas has just released three Hostages from GAZA, including an American Citizen. They seem to be in good shape! This differs from their statement last week that they would not release any Hostages. Israel will now have to decide what they will do about the 12:00 O’CLOCK, TODAY, DEADLINE imposed on the release of ALL HOSTAGES. The United States will back the decision they make!
According to the Jerusalem Post, the hostages appeared thin and pale but were able to stand, support their own weight, and walk independently.
These initial signs suggest their medical condition is stable and does not require emergency hospitalization at Soroka Medical Center or Barzilai Medical Center in the South.
At the reception point in Re’im, military doctors conducted initial medical examinations, accompanied by a mental health officer who will continue to support them until they reach Ichilov Hospital and Sheba Medical Center.
There are 73 hostages, including 5 Americans, still being held in Gaza. At least 35 of them are dead.
Israeli soldiers seen inside the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, on January 19, 2025(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
I wrote a quick update about the situation in Gaza the other day. In it I mentioned the comments made by President Trump regarding the hostage situation. While those initial comments opened some eyes across the region, what the President said the next day really put the fox in the henhouse.
When the President heard that Hamas was planning on violating the cease-fire and hostage deal by not releasing hostages as scheduled, he had more to say. After commenting again on the condition of the three released hostages, Trump issued an ultimatum; release the hostages by Saturday, or “all hell will break loose”.
When pressed by reporters for details on what that meant, Mr. Trump initially responded: “You’ll find out, and they’ll find out, too. Hamas will find out what I mean.”
He later said Saturday’s delayed hostage release – which was expected to see the release of another three hostages held by Hamas in exchange for dozens more Palestinian prisoners – should include all of the remaining hostages.
“I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday,” Mr. Trump said. “All of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two.”
Hamas, of course, got its panties in a wad over the ultimatum. A senior Hamas leader told the French news agency AFP on Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s warning over the hostages “further complicates matters.”
“Trump must remember that there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties and this is the only way to return the prisoners (hostages),” Sami Abu Zuhri said. “The language of threats has no value and further complicates matters”.
Today, there is news that Hamas did not take the President’s warning as seriously as they should. The Jerusalem Post is now reporting that Hamas will not release all of the hostages this Saturday.
Senior Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri spoke to Al Jazeera on Wednesday evening and stated that Hamas is “committed” to implementing the previously agreed schedule of the hostage deal and that they will not release “all” Israeli hostages on Saturday.
Abu Zuhri’s comments likely came as part of a larger statement to Al Jazeera regarding Hamas’s views towards the potential breakdown of the ceasefire agreement.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that if Hamas does not release the Israeli hostages by Saturday, all hell will break loose.
Hamas might just be starting to realize that they are not dealing with Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, and the rest of the halfwits from the last administration. They did blink, at least a little and are now releasing at least three hostages this Saturday.
The IDF has already started to position troops and equipment close to the Gaza Strip. If they move, and it seems likely if Hamas violates the deal again, I’d expect the IDF to sever the Strip at that Netzarim corridor again, and push any of the Gaza Arabs back to the south end of the strip. I would also expect them to take control of the crossings into Egypt at Rafah and Kerem Shalom. They may take the Philadelphi corridor, but that would be secondary.
A Palestinian walks past destroyed residential buildings damaged by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Bureij, central Gaza Strip, January 22, 2025.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written about the goings-on in Israel and that region. So, I figure it’s time for an update of sorts.
I’m reasonably sure that you have heard about what Trump said about the US taking over Gaza as part of the rebuilding process there. As part of that same press availability, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he also said Egypt and Jordan would have to take some of the Gaza Arabs*. What’s more, in comments released today, he said that any displaced Gaza Arabs would not have the right of return.
The first comments caused some serious soul searching across the Sahel, particularly in Egypt and the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. Keep in mind, the Gaza Strip was Egyptian prior to the 1967 Six Day war and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank*) were the ‘Trans’ part of Transjordan until the same war.
Both Egypt and Jordan have had serious issues with refugees from both Gaza and Judea and Samaria. The previous King of Jordan, Hussein, was almost toppled by them. Neither can truly afford to take many Gazan refugees but neither can they afford not to do as the US wants.
The hostages that were released by Hamas on Saturday, Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami, and Or Levy, were in the worst condition of any so far. They looked not dissimilar to photos of German concentration camp victims, exceedingly thin, gaunt and pale. Hamas forced the men to thank them before they were released. Eli Sharabi said he was thankful to go home to his wife and daughters. The captor asking the questions laughed knowing, unlike Eli, that the wife and daughters had been murdered on 10/7.
President Trump weighed in on the condition of the hostages, “Hamas has been a disaster… I watched the hostages come back today. And they looked like Holocaust survivors, they were in horrible condition. They were emaciated… I don’t know how much longer we can take that.” I don’t think he is going to take it.
It gets worse though. After the nearly universal backlash about the condition of the released hostages, Hamas said today that it was suspending the hostage release program indefinitely. They are – falsely – claiming Israeli violations of the hostage deal. Among the claims are that the IDF has fired on Gazans who have returned north of the Netzarim corridor and that Israel has prevented food and other necessities from entering Gaza.
My take is they need time to fatten up the remaining hostages. Hamas and their enablers clearly did not realize the effect the shockingly bad condition of the released hostages would have on public opinion outside the Strip.
I also tend to think they underestimated Trump after dealing with Biden and his band of mid-and-half-wits for the last four years. They are about to find out there is a new sheriff in town, and he isn’t afraid of using his power to get what he wants. I think Qatar the one holding most of the purse strings for Hamas and the PA in Judea and Samaria – has underestimated him as well, at least up until Friday that is. The comments about the US taking control of Gaza opened some eyes in that region, including those of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the day-to-day ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Author’s note: I am no longer calling the Arab residents of the Gaza strip, Judea and Samaria Palestinians. I will only call them what they are; Arabs. They didn’t even call themselves that prior to the rise of Arafat when it became politically expedient to have a separate nationality to fall back on. Nor will I call Judea and Samaria the West Bank.
The headlines about an essential new study by the Henry Jackson Societyfocus on the fact that the casualty numbers out of Gaza have been “inflated.” And that is true, and important. But more important is howthose numbers have been inflated, and which casualties this effect applies to.
HJS’s Andrew Fox spearheaded the rigorous study, and provided a great public service in doing so. It is now incontestable—though it was evident already—that Hamas has lied. But this report implicates the Western press and politicians in ways that may be uncomfortable to face. Regardless, face them we must.
Let’s jump right to the point. At the beginning of the war, Hamas Ministry of Health statistics on fatalities were the only regular source of data on the subject and were mainly supplied by hospital officials. A couple of months into the war, a second source became regularly available: official family reporting of loved ones lost. These require eventual verification because they are tied to government benefits due the bereaved families.
At some point, hospital records were disrupted by the effects of the war and Hamas began changing its methods of collecting the data to less reliable, less scientific, and less reviewable ways.
Can you guess what happened? Sure you can.
At the beginning, both Hamas and family reporting found that military-aged males constituted a similar share of casualties. When Hamas changed its counting methods, those numbers diverged significantly.
Can you guess which one matched the trendlines from before the divergence? Of course you can.
The family reports remained statistically consistent and the Hamas numbers went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
From April to August of this year, the report states that, according to Hamas hospital numbers, 45 percent of those killed were men and 37 percent were children. According to the more reliable family reports, men were 64 percent of casualties and children were 22 percent.
Except, “children” generally means under 18 and Hamas has been known to tweak it to 19. Which means we know for a fact a chunk of that 22 percent were combatants. Some of those combatants were children, some weren’t. The fact that Hamas uses child soldiers actually benefited the terror group in the media narrative, because the numbers never distinguish between civilians and combatants, and news consumers don’t read “children” and assume “combatants.” The press was broadly complicit in normalizing and incentivizing the use of child soldiers, a fact that should stain many reputations forever.
But wait, there’s more. The report notes that Hamas—and thus the press—includes natural deaths in the casualty count. There were more than 5,000 natural deaths in that time, by conservative estimate.
But wait, there’s even more. A review of the first 1,000 names on Hamas’s casualty list between the beginning of the war and the summertime found more than 100—that is, 10 percent—had their ages revised downward. In other words, between the time that Hamas numbers could be plausibly verified and the more recent counts, lots of people suddenly became “children.”
But wait, there’s still more. Gaza casualty numbers include those killed by Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups. Remember the al-Ahli hospital blast that was reported initially as a Israel’s fault, only to become clear soon after that it was an errant Palestinian rocket (likely from Palestinian Islamic Jihad)? Those deaths still get reported today by the press as caused by Israel because they are included in the casualty numbers—as are, if you can believe it, all Gazans murdered by Hamas security forces during the war.
But wait, there still even more. Cancer patients, the report shows, were listed as war fatalities by Hamas while still also being listed as alive and receiving treatment in Israel or some other treatment center outside Gaza.
Two main conclusions. First, once you drop the natural deaths, approximate the numbers of those killed by Hamas or other Palestinian groups, and adjust the demographic numbers to fit the actual family reports, you end up with about as many militants killed as civilians. In an urban environment with the Hamas soldiers stationed among civilians, this means Israel’s civilian-combatant ratio is not just low but unheard of.
Second, much of the reporting and commentary has framed this war as a “war on Palestinian children.” It’s a convenient reanimation of a classic blood libel, and it is demonstrably a lie. I don’t think anyone using the “Israel is murdering Palestinian children” talking point was never interested in statistical accuracy, but it is important that the rest of society is aware of the level of deception being practiced by those who propagate it.
Ever since the October 7th attack last year, the Israelis have picked off Hamass and Hezbollah leadership one by one. News dropped this morning that they got another one.
This time they got Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza. Sinwar was the mastermind behind the 10/7 attack and the highest ranking Hamass leader in Gaza.
Early indications point to the action that saw Sinwar’s brain exposed to the atmosphere was not a special operation but rather a routine patrol in the Tal al Sultan area of Gaza, just north of Rafah. It appears the unit that was in contact did not realize they were engaging Sinwar. They spotted a group of terrorists moving between buildings and opened fire.
Looks like the Israeli soldiers didn’t know they were engaging Sinwar when they fired.
An Israeli tank opened fire in the Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah when it spotted 3 Hamas terrorists trying to move from one building to another during a patrol. pic.twitter.com/ZQSqv0XdNJ
Sinwar was tried and convicted of the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he considered to be collaborators in 1989. He was sentenced to four life sentences by Israel but was released after serving only 22 years as part of a hostage deal that saw IDF trooper Gilad Shalit released. While in prison, Sinwar developed a brain tumor that would have killed him, but Israeli doctors removed it. Proving once again that no good deed goes unpunished.
They thought 07/10 would spark the final war to eject the Jews from the Holy Land.
Guest Post: Does Allah Support the Jews in the Gaza War?
This is a guest post by Yaacov Apelbaum – republished with permission.
To understand why, despite the fervent prayers of hundreds of millions of Muslims, Allah continues to support the Jews and does not intervene to stop the war in Gaza, we must delve into both the theological and historical dimensions of this war.
The struggle between Bani Isra’il (the Arabic form of the Hebrew, B’nai Israel, the Children of Israel) and the Arabs can only be comprehended through the Qur’anic lens that affirms Allah’s enduring love and support for the Jews.
This support is part of a continuous messianic plan that mandates their return to their promised land.
This view, deeply rooted in Islamic tradition, sheds light on divine intervention, the fulfillment of Allah’s promise to Ibrahim (Avraham), Ishaq (Isaac), and Ya’qub (Jacob), and the realization of biblical prophecy in modern times.
The Quran itself and Islamic tradition firmly establish that Allah made an everlasting covenant with the Jews, one of profound and eternal significance.
The Quran states:
“O Children of Israel! Remember My favor which I bestowed upon you, and fulfill the covenant, I shall fulfill the covenant and fear Me alone.” (Ayah al-Baqarah 2:40)
“Allah made a covenant with the Children of Israel and appointed twelve leaders from among them and ˹then˺ said, “I am truly with you. If you establish prayer, pay alms-tax, believe in My messengers, support them, and lend to Allah a good loan, I will certainly forgive your sins and admit you into Gardens under which rivers flow. And whoever among you disbelieves afterward has truly strayed from the Right Way.” (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:12)
“And [recall] when We took the covenant from the Children of Israel, [enjoining upon them], ‘Do not worship except Allah; and to parents do good and to relatives, orphans, and the needy. And speak to people good [words] and establish prayer and give zakah.’” Surah Al-Baqarah (2:83)
The Quran also explicitly recounts Allah’s command to the Children of Israel to enter the Holy Land, which includes the land of Israel:
“O my people, enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you” (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:21).
This covenant and commands are not simply literary footnotes; they are the bedrock of a grand, God’s plan that stretches across millennia.
This is not just a story of a small Hebrew nomadic tribe going down to Egypt; it is the genesis of a powerful nation that endured the crucible of slavery, emerged triumphant in the Exodus, and survived 40 years of testing in the Sinai desert.
Under Joshua, they conquered the Promised Land, establishing the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judea, only to face 2000 years of exile. Yet, their return is not merely an isolated event; it is a testament to their indispensable role in the plan—a role that is central to the fulfillment of prophecy and the ultimate unfolding of human destiny.
According to this Muslim view, the current events are far from mere sociopolitical anomalies; they are the inevitable and unstoppable manifestation of an Allah’s work set in motion thousands of years ago.
The survival of the Jews is not just the fulfillment of God’s will—it is an essential, predestined step in the grand, unyielding plan of Allah that is unfolding with undeniable clarity before our very eyes.
The unwavering support Allah has bestowed upon the Children of Israel throughout history is not just a backdrop but a driving force that shapes the present-day dynamics of the Middle East.
The establishment of the State of Israel in it’s original land and the resurrection of Hebrew as a spoken language and the redemption of the Jews are calculated, deliberate execution of Allah’s plan that transcends mere history; it is the active and powerful realization of divine oracle, a prophecy that is being actualized in our time with unmistakable clarity, force, and purpose.
The understanding that Allah has brought the Children of Israel back to their promised land offers a compelling theological explanation for the current war in Gaza and in the Middle East.
The strife and suffering endured by the Palestinians since 1948 are not random misfortunes but rather the direct consequence of their resistance to this plan. Just as the Quran recounts the torment of the Egyptians and the downfall of Pharaoh for defying Allah’s will in the following passage:
“We brought the Children of Israel across the sea. Then, Pharaoh and his soldiers pursued them unjustly and oppressively. But as Pharaoh was drowning, he cried out, “I believe that there is no god except that in whom the Children of Israel believe, and I am ˹now˺ one of those who submit.” (Surah Yunus 10:90)
Allah’s promises to the Jews unfolds over vast epochs, with the suffering and struggles of individuals and communities serving as integral components of a broader, often inscrutable strategy.
Within this context, the Jews’ 2,000-year exile and suffering and their resilience in the face of 100 years of relentless Arab hostility are not merely historical events but crucial elements of this unfolding prophetic journey.
Allah, in His wisdom, grants human beings free will, commanding mankind to adhere to the Seven Noahide Laws. While Allah’s plans are in motion, individuals are free to make choices and shape their destinies within these frameworks.
The current conflict in Gaza, particularly the events triggered by the murderous October 7 attacks, serves as a stark illustration of how the Palestinians have misused their free will, resulting in severe divine retribution.
The Palestinians had many opportunities to align themselves with Allah’s commands by accepting the Jews’ rightful return to their Promised Land, but, opted to reject it. The Quran lays out the consequences of such decisions.
Their refusal, akin to Pharaoh’s historic defiance and refusing to let Israel leave Egypt, has led to their current suffering and punishment. These acts underscore the critical importance of accepting G-D’s will rather than resisting it, proving that opposition to Allah’s explicit directives inevitably leads to suffering and death.
Given the belief in Allah’s promises to the Jews, the Muslim Ummah must acknowledge and embrace their leading role in this orchestration.
The ethical and religious responsibility of Muslims is clear: to facilitate the return of the Jews to their promised land and actively work towards peace in the Middle East. This duty includes seeking justice for the Jewish people, aligning their actions with God’s edicts, and ensuring they are on the right side of judgment day.
Understanding these promises and their implications in the modern context requires broad action from the Arab world. This involves addressing historical and theological questions and engaging in interfaith dialogue, reconciliation, and political and economic cooperation.
The Arab world must also urgently address the humanitarian crisis and needs and work towards the peaceful resettlement of all of the Palestinians outside the boundaries of the Promised Land.
The belief that Allah has historically supported the Children of Israel and is fulfilling his promises through their return to their Promised Land provides the best explanation of why there wasn’t and won’t be a intervention that is favorable to the Muslim in Gaza or in any other Arab-Israeli conflict. This fact underscores Allah’s everlasting special covenant with the Children of Israel.
Israel’s divine protection is a powerful testament to Allah’s unwavering support for the Jewish people, shielding them from the relentless attacks from Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen. These adversaries, despite their best efforts, are unable to overcome the shield that engulfs and safeguards Israel, a nation whose existence and endurance are ordained by Allah Himself. This protection is not just a matter of military hardware; it is the manifestation of a plan that ensures the fulfillment of Allah’s promises to the Children of Israel. Israel’s survival in the face of such formidable enemies is undeniable proof of a G-D’s will.
LtCol Itamar Eitam, commanding officer of the 6828th reserve IDF infantry battalion, blows the Shofar ahead of leading his men into combat in Gaza
On October 7, 2024, Hamas, along with a contingent of Palestinian “civilians,” invaded Israel, bringing with them a level of demonic evil that defied humanity. They didn’t just kill; they butchered and raped.
Innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered without mercy, their lives snuffed out by a wave of barbarism that shocked the world.
These weren’t acts of war—they were acts of pure, animalistic savagery.
The brutality wasn’t just physical but psychological—a calculated campaign to terrorize and destroy Israel. The inhumanity of their actions was chilling, as they crossed every moral line, showing no remorse, no humanity.
Today, the consequences of their monstrous deeds are evident. The same hands that once wielded weapons with a murderous fury now tremble in fear as the tide of war has turned. Many of these perpetrators, along with their families, lie dead, buried in tunnels or under the rubble of their own making.
Those who survive are not living—they’re running like hunted animals, desperate and displaced as they flee from one decimated corner of Gaza to another. The devastation they once inflicted has returned with a vengeance, leaving them in a hell of their own making.
Their brutality has not gone unanswered; Allah has spoken with a vengeance, leaving them trapped in a nightmare from which there is no escape.
Iranian (ex)President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helo crash Sunday. Good riddance to bad Rubbish.
Raisi was returning to Iran after a diplomatic trip to Azerbaijan. All indications are that the crash was what’s called controlled flight into terrain. That’s on the pilot for flying below minimums.
It seems the midwits in the State Department think the Butcher of Tehran deserved some sort of hagiographic sendoff.
I really, really hate everyone who works in Foggy Bottom. . .
It seems the Iranians have decided on who to blame for the crash today as well. According to Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s former foreign minister, the US is responsible. How’s that? Well, Iran has been prevented from buying certain aircraft parts due to sanctions. That includes parts for the 45+ year old Bell 212 carrying Raisi.
I’m pretty sure I covered the JLOTS (joint logistics over the shore) pier the US was using to speed ‘humanitarian aid’ to Gaza before. The whole thing has been a goat rope and should – but probably won’t – open some eyes in the Pentagon. Between the delays, mechanical issues and assorted f*ckups along the way, the JLOTS is now up and running. Kind of. Most of the first shipment of aid from the pier was stolen before it could get to the distribution center.
Not so easy, is it? "One of the first aid shipments to arrive in the Gaza Strip through a U.S.-built pier was looted"https://t.co/02FjhmY83Z
There was a high school track meet in Oregon recently. You might ask why I bring it up, and rightly so because there are track meets held this time of year all over the country. At this specific meet, the winner of the girls 200m race was booed, both at the finish line and at the awards ceremony. You see, the winner was a boy named Aayden Gallagher.
This is Aayden Gallagher. He’s a boy who thinks he’s a girl and just came in 1st place in the women’s 200m Oregon State Championship.
Listen to the audience’s loud BOOs as they announce him as the winner!
Better get your fill of Cheddar Bay biscuits, Red Lobster is declaring bankruptcy. The chain said it has outstanding liabilities of between $1 and $10 billion in the filing. Much of the fault can be laid at the feet of the hedge fund that bought the seafood giant. The fund sold off all the real estate and then leased it back to the company at inflated rates.
Red Lobster, the largest seafood restaurant chain in the world, has filed for bankruptcy. The company said it had more than $1 billion in debt. pic.twitter.com/PivqoCXSLd
Whilst perusing the interwebs today I ran across a story about ‘Queers for Palestine’ that frankly irritated me. Not the article, that was well written and thoroughly researched, but a single tweet used as the MacGuffin of the article.
The only reason Palestine was ever 'homophobic' was because the BRITISH MANDATE criminalized gay marriage, Palestinians, once in control of their own government, legalized it in the 1950s, about thirty years before is*ael.
— sof’s library ✧˖°. 🥄 (@folkoftheshelf) April 2, 2024
Every word in that post is wrong. Even community notes got in on the act:
There was no Palestinian state until 1988. From 1948 to 1967, the West Bank was controlled by Jordan. Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip.
Jordan decriminalised same-sex relations in 1951. They did not legalise gay marriage.
Let’s take a step back and look at the history of that region for a minute. The first evidence of a Jewish presence in the Levant starts showing up in the late Bronze age, 1550-1150 BCE. By the early Iron Age, there was ample evidence of two major Jewish/Israeli kingdoms, Israel and Judea.
Israel and Judea Late 9th century BCE.
The boundaries changed fairly frequently over the next thousand years due to external wars and successional ones. What didn’t change was the fact that there were Jews living there the entire time. During the reign of Herod the Great, 72-4BCE, the Jewish kingdom was a client state of the Roman Empire. the boundaries of Israel, or more properly Judea and Samaria, looked pretty similar to what they do today.
I should note here that during the Roman occupation the areas to the south of Judea were called Philistine, after the tribes that lived there. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the entire region was renamed Palaestina – which was intended as an insult to the Jews, the Philistines were notoriously uncultured – and became a Roman province. This becomes important later.
The Islamic conquest of the Levant started in 634, more than 2000 years after the first Jews appeared there. The conquest was swift and Sharia, or at least the version of Sharia that was practiced then, was imposed. From that point up until the end of WWI, the lands of Israel were controlled by the various Muslim caliphates.
Fast forward a thousand or so years to the Ottoman Empire period. The Turks controlled the Levant and thus the lands that would become modern Israel. During the time the Ottomans controlled the lands, they were known as the Mustaffarate of Jerusalem. I probably should let you know that during the entire Muslim period, Jews were treated as Dwimmi and paid Jizaya, that is the tax on non-muslims and were subject to periodic pogroms. Yet they were still there.
At the end of WWI, the Ottoman lands outside of Turkey proper were divided between the French and British.
It was at this point that Palestine came into common use with British Mandatory Palestine. Prior to 1922 and the establishment of the Mandate, you could not find the word Palestine used on any map or in any textbook. The Brits, being the insufferable toerags they were back then, insisted on a call-back to the Roman era insult, and chose a ‘modernized’ version of Palaestina. Regardless, the Brits had promised a Jewish homeland in the Mandate, and many European Jews emigrated at this time.
I’m sure most of you have at least passing knowledge of the history of the founding of Israel in 1947 and the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars so I won’t get into it, this article is getting too long already. I don’t think I realized where this was going when I started.
Now on to the things that irritated me about that post above. We see a few common themes with all the queers for Palestine and Social Justice crowds when it comes to the Israel-Hamas war, and they’re all stupid.
First up is a complete lack of knowledge about the history of the Levant and the Jewish presence there. Hence the longish – but still incomplete – history lesson above. I keep hearing the Israelis being called ‘colonizers’ yet their presence in the region predates almost every ethnic group or religion. If anyone could be accused of being colonizers it’s the Muslims. They took over the land with fire and sword more than a thousand years after the Jews had settled there.
Next up is the aversion to the true teachings* of Islam. There are dozens of examples of fairly prominent Imams and Islamic scholars saying that the reason Hamas is losing is because there are too many homosexuals at the rallies and protests. I’m a firm believer in the adage when they tell you who they are, believe them. And the Islamists are telling any-and-every one who will listen that being gay goes against the teachings of Allah and deserves the death penalty. I could provide you with the Suras, but frankly I’m too lazy to google them.
It was only a year or so ago that Hamas beheaded a prominent Gazan LGBT activist. It was a public execution if I’m remembering correctly. The Iranians chuck homos off roofs fairly regularly. Being gay in Saudi Arabia will get you flogged. I don’t even want to know what the Taliban would do to homosexuals. Rape you to death probably.
The last thing that irritates me is when they get called out on their nonsense they run away. It’s uncomfortable for them to have their world view challenged and they do everything they can to avoid it. The particular poster here locked down replies as soon as they realized they were gonna get demolished in the replies. There have been more than 15 thousand retweets of that post and I wouldn’t be surprised if the account locks down in the near future.
* Don’t get me wrong here, I am not endorsing Islam in any way here. I’m using true in the this is what islam really says way.
(This column is Part 2 of a series of articles explaining the fallacies that have led to the world’s leftists supporting Palestine, Gaza, and Hamas’ horrors.)
The concepts of “Palestine” and “Palestinians” did not exist before the mid-20th century, but truth has little meaning to the left when it is in conflict with their anti-Semitic/anti-Israel/Marxist/socialist/destruction-of-Western-culture agenda. Even when confronted with the facts, they attempt to justify the truly evil actions of Hamas.
The latest argument against Israel is that Israel’s retaliation against Hamas is not “proportional.” We are already being inundated with images of the wounded in Gaza. Israel is being called an aggressor and worse. The images of war will be shown more and more in the coming days until the leftist agenda of removing the last week’s images from our minds is achieved.
But we cannot let that happen. We must always remember what Hamas has done, and how they degraded all of humanity with their conscious targeting of civilians. We must never forget the images of people being dragged out of their cars to be stomped on until they die by Hamas, the videos that Hamas proudly took of homes being invaded and children killed, or the horrors of videos of victims being filmed on the victims’ own cell phones and then sent to their families from their phones.
Hamas has demonstrated a barbarism unseen in humanity for hundreds if not thousands of years, and we must not let anti-Semitic Marxists like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) change the narrative in an attempt to transform Hamas and the people of Gaza into victims.
Since they can’t really hang their hat on the fallacy of a historical Palestine, they are trying to stop Israel from destroying the evil of Hamas based on the idea that Israel is doing worse to Hamas than Hamas did to Israel. Even while history, common sense, and the most basic ethical standards of humanity demonstrate that Hamas and its supporters have descended to a level below even animals; let us evaluate this concept of proportionality.
General Wiliam Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army is credited first with the saying, “War is hell.” There is no proportionality in war: you fight for your survival, and it is uglier than any human being should have to experience. In some ways, that’s the point of war: to make it so horrible that people will do almost anything for peace. If Hamas didn’t want hell rained down on Gaza, it should not have consciously and specifically targeted the elderly, women, and children.
Hamas CHOSE to drop into a music festival and rape, kidnap, and murder young people celebrating life through music. There was no pressure on Hamas to video its acts of horror and send those images to families with the express intention of traumatizing them. Terrorists did choose to perform these heinous acts, and there is every justification to make sure this never happens again.
But the left is now claiming that this isn’t right — that Israel’s actions are greater than what they suffered. They are demanding that Israel abides by the “principle of proportionality,” a term that they think means that while Hamas can kill Israeli babies, Israel cannot kill any civilian even by accident.
Ironically, the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare at Westpoint has established that “there is [sic] no reliable reports that the IDF have [sic] ever intentionally targeted civilians.” Juxtapose this against Hamas’ specific intent to cause terror among civilians. The Israeli Air Force is the only one in the world that gives notice to civilians to exit a building before destroying it, and Israel handcuffs itself in battle by doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties. While Israel defends all civilians, Hamas uses children and its own civilians as human shields to protect themselves.
Simply put, Israel uses the IDF to protect its citizens. Hamas uses its citizens to protect Hamas. The civilian pain that is happening in Gaza as Israel now attacks is a direct result of Hamas’ practice of shielding itself with babies. The principle of proportionality is very specific: attacks that might affect civilians are prohibited unless they are excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
Since the military advantage is to get Hamas out of Gaza and its supporters defeated forever, then Israel is following that principle perfectly. The Israeli military’s need to remove any vestige of Hamas from the world is so necessary that, sadly, civilians may get hurt. But remember, given that the IDF gives advance notice, the only reason for a civilian to be in Gaza is if they support Hamas or if Hamas is using them as human shields.
There is no real “Palestine”; Hamas targets civilians in the cruelest of ways; and Israel still does everything possible to avoid collateral damage. But these anti-Israel fanatics still say that too many Gaza citizens are getting hurt or dying. They think they are the official arbiter of how many Gaza casualties are too many and castigate Israel for defending herself.
If these supporters of the fanatical and evil Hamas really want to crunch numbers to determine how many is too many, consider the following: If these Marxists want “proportionate precision” based on percentages; a literal “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (which only ultimately leads to blind men with no teeth), then let us review the statistics. There are over 1,500 times more Arab Muslims than Israeli citizens (9.5 million vs 1.5 billion), and over 1,300 Israeli civilians have been kidnapped, raped, and/or killed in this war so far.
Since there are over 1,500 times more Arab Muslims who are supporting Hamas in the region, we multiply 1,500 times over 1,300 victims. By their logic of precise proportionality, we would need to kill 2 million Arab Muslim civilians to be pari-passu with Hamas, and God forbid we ever have to do that.
While Israel works hard to keep Gaza’s civilian casualties down, Hamas consciously aims for civilians. While Israel strives to remove civilians from fighting areas, Hamas uses children, babies, and the elderly as human shields. When the left is complaining that too many Gaza citizens are getting injured, they are rejecting the mathematics that demonstrates how Israel really is restraining herself.
This entire rhetoric of principled proportionality is just another public relations scheme that, when accompanied by painful images of war, is an attempt to destroy Israel in the minds and hearts of people around the world. We must not let this publicity stunt, which capitalizes on the devastation that Israel is required to perform on Hamas, subvert our support for Israel and her actions.
Israel and the Israel Defense Force is the most ethical army in the history of the world. Rather than condemning its precise efforts to keep civilians safe, we must laud it. And we must always remember: while Israel uses the IDF to protect civilians, Hamas is killing its own civilians to protect Hamas.
As Golda Meir is credited with saying, “If the Arabs lay down their weapons, there will be peace. If the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a massacre.” We just experienced the truth of her words and the massacres and horrors of Israel not holding their weapons strongly enough. Do not ask us to invite other massacres in the future, God forbid, by using the leftist argument that Israel needs to restrain herself against villains who use babies as shields and then turn to their advantage the deaths of those babies that Hamas is directly responsible for murdering.
Israel will always strive to save civilians while destroying the evil of Hamas and its supporters. But there is no moral equivalency, and we cannot let fools like Ocasio-Cortez and her squad be left unanswered.
I bet they were. In fact, we hardly need the Gazan testimony today to know that they fully supported Hamas’ launch of war against Israeli civilians in mass attacks around Gaza’s borderlands. In video after video promulgated by the Gazans and Hamas terrorists themselves, we saw them dancing in the streets as they dragged bodies and hostages into Gaza from Israel, and mocking and terrorizing children hostages as part of their celebration.
As Haaretz reports today, though, it has begun to dawn on Gazans that they seriously miscalculated how Israel and its allies would respond to this war. “At first we were ecstatic,” one Gazan tells their reporter, celebrating it as a “historic day.” Now they are finding out just how historic it might be, as it might send Palestinian Gaza into the history books:
“None of us believed the videos we saw on Saturday morning. Hamas fighters inside Israeli territory and fighting with all their might,” Maha, a 34-year-old woman from Gaza City said in a call with Haaretz. “Who would have thought this would happen?” She called October 7 “a historic day for the Palestinian people.”
Maha is not alone in defining the Hamas invasion of Israeli territory as a historic day. Most Palestinians from Gaza who spoke to Haaretz described the first hours as the beginning of the “liberation of Palestine.”
“We were ecstatic. It’s like a dream that is hard to wake up from,” Maha adds. “But as the picture became clearer, and I saw that there were Israeli prisoners, I realized that we were in a nightmare, in hell.”
First off, let’s parse out “fighting with all their might.” Hamas terrorists paraglided into a concert to slaughter at least 260 unarmed civilians, a number of them foreigners. That’s not “might” — that’s gutless terrorism against defenseless people, the most cowardly attack of all. The fact that this made Gazans “ecstatic” tells us plenty about not just their culture but also their complete embrace of Hamas as their leadership.
But of course, it was much worse than that, as i24’s report today makes clear. The same “heroic” Hamas “fighters” were decapitating babies too:
“I’m talking to some of the soldiers…what they witnessed…babies, their heads cut off…” pic.twitter.com/OzhN9zxaQF
This is what made Gazans “ecstatic.” Reports and video showing Hamas raping women and killing children didn’t bother them a bit. Only after they considered the potential consequences of the hostaging did their enthusiasm dim somewhat.
Let this serve as a reminder to those who argue that we should separate Gazans from the Hamas government they elected in 2006 and which they have fully supported ever since. Hamas launched this war in part to make Gazans ecstatic, and they succeeded. And Gazans are clear on the objective, which isn’t more fully autonomous control of Gaza:
“I don’t support Hamas’ positions, but this war is a direct result of the siege on Gaza and the occupation by the enemy. Israel has been occupying our Palestinian lands since 1967, Maher said, adding that Palestinians despair of how they have been treated by successive Israeli governments. “We all know very well that they are not interested in negotiations with the Palestinians. That’s the only option we have left – to fight,” he said. Maher does not agree with the claim that this war was launched because of the normalization process taking shape with Saudi Arabia. “The war for Al-Aqsa is our top priority,” he said, referring to the mosque on the Temple Mount, known to Moslems as Haram al-Sharif.
They want Jerusalem back, and Israel pushed back to its 1948 borders — as a start. Their real mission is clear from the Palestinian protest chant From the river to the sea — the eradication of Israel entirely. That very much includes making everyone they see as settlers into legitimate targets of violence, children and babies included. Raping and pillaging are embraced as well by the Gazans.
So why should anyone object when Israel responds by defeating and subjugating Gaza in the barbaric war their government launched and they cheered?
What becomes clear in this piece from the far-Left Haaretz is the dawning realization that Gazans made a fatal miscalculation by launching this war. They cheered when Hamas terrorists dragged hostages back because they assumed that the Israelis would play by the old rules: some retaliatory attacks and then generous terms for hostage swaps. They likely assumed that Israel’s allies in the West would pressure them, as usual, to use only “proportional” force in precision-targeted strikes.
Instead, the attacks forced Israel to confront a hard reality: there is no peaceful coexistence with Hamas or any other Iranian proxy on its borders. Having tolerated the missile attacks for eighteen years, Israel had hardened its defenses in the calculation that settling the Gaza question would be far more costly than simply isolating it and controlling its borders to keep arms from getting in. This Hamas attack exposed the folly of that approach, as well as the miscalculation of containment of Iran’s ambition to annihilate Israel.
They now have no choice but to uproot and destroy Hamas’ footprint in Gaza and ensure it never returns — and that likely means the end of Gaza as a Palestinian settlement. That should please Egypt, even if they won’t admit it, as Hamas was a malevolent branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the enemy of the al-Sisi regime there. It would remove the Palestinian issue from their border and make it into a West Bank/Jordan problem. Whatever other issues this creates for al-Sisi, removing that headache and putting Israel in control of Gaza may well be worth it.
For that matter, it might simplify things for Mahmoud Abbas, although he won’t admit it either. It will eliminate his main rival for power and the complication of Gaza in any future negotiations. Abbas and his Fatah regime are less connected to Iran than they are the Sunni states, at least traditionally, and furthermore they have to rely on the nearby Sunni states for both diplomatic and economic support, especially Jordan. This certainly serves as an object lesson about the end of Israeli tolerance for intifada and sets a precedent for the consequences that could follow, a precedent that will become more firm if Israel really presses this to its strategic end.
And if they do, this will likely be a serious miscalculation for Tehran, too. Their lines of communication to the West Bank are much more difficult than they are to Gaza, for obvious reasons. It was far easier to foment jihad in Gaza through their Hamas proxy as a way to wear down Israel and the West. The mullahs in Tehran must have also assumed that the result of the Hamas war would be a huge morale boost that would cause the West Bank to rise up, join Hezbollah, and overrun a confused and reeling Israel at its moment of crisis. Instead, Iran appears to be on the brink of losing its only real footprint in Israel and perhaps just days away from a massive refugee crisis, as Egypt and other Sunni states will almost certainly refuse to grant the Iranian-allied Gazans to remain for long once they are ejected from Gaza.
Israel didn’t declare war as a rhetorical device, but as a legal step toward total victory over its enemy. The only way to rescue the situation now would be for Gazans to immediately capitulate the territory to Israel and surrender all Hamas terrorists and hostages. That is the only outcome in the war they launched that might keep them in Gaza and under some form of autonomous government. If not, the Gazans had better study the end of World War II and prepare on the basis of what happened to the Germans after the Allies crushed the Nazis.
This is what happens when you launch wars of annihilation and conquest, especially with this level of barbarity to inspire your enemies and force your allies to back away. You either win it or get crushed. FAFO, indeed.
