Try A Little Honesty in the Middle East
The "Palestine problem" can't be addressed by lying
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This is a riff on a Victor Hanson article in the Patriot Post of 25 January 2024, before the Israeli counterattack in May 2024.
These are some of their most common falsehoods about 7 October 23 and the conflict that has followed and continues to this day.
Israel is Targeting Civilians
Hamas planned to use Gaza civilians as shields against Israeli counterattacks after 7 October. Defining “Palestinian civilians,” the difference between soldiers and not-soldiers in this conflict, is the difference between shooters and shields. After murdering nearly 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping 250-odd more on 7 October, Hamas and its followers scurried back to Gaza and hid in tunnels and bases beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions (that their apologists claim Israel violates by targeting them). The Conventions allow attacks on military facilities hidden by such structures.
Outside assessors during the ensuing conflict have concluded that Israel has not inadvertently killed a greater ratio of shields-to-shooters compared to other urban conflicts, and perhaps even fewer than did American engagements in Mosul and Fallujah.
Israel’s Disproportionate Response
Iran tried to send 320 missiles and rockets into Israel. Israel replied with three. Hamas launched 7,000 rockets into Israel designed to kill Israeli civilians and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis without warning on 7 October. Israel often drops leaflets and sends texts to forewarn civilians of impending attacks.
Israel has been disproportionate only in the effectiveness of its response. Hamas and its Iranian benefactor intended disproportionately to hurt Israel. Israel is competent, and Hamas incompetent in their efforts to use disproportionate force.
Israel = Colonists and Settlers
The last “settlers” in Gaza arrived thousands of years ago…and they were Arabs. Undeterred by this, the “student protestors” or “activists” (for the sake of brevity, I’ll call them all “screamers” for the rest of this essay), claim the Israelis are “settlers” and “colonists” in the area, and sometimes yell at Jews in New York to “go back to Poland,” presumably to the now-defunct death camps.
However, the concept of "Israel" as a distinct Jewish state, situated roughly in its current location, has roots stretching back at least three millennia. The much later Arab invasions of the Byzantine-controlled Levant and their arrival in Palestine came about 1,800 years after the establishment of a Jewish Israel-called-Palestine. The only “colonists” in Gaza are the ethnic Arabs-called-”Palestinians.”
A Two-State Solution
This is a contradiction not of terms but of reality. When the screamers chant “from the river to the sea,” that is not advocacy for a two-state solution, even if they know which river and which sea, which most do not. It is a call to eliminate the state of Israel—lying in between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea—and its 10 million Jewish and Arab citizens.
The Hamas charter contains a one-state/no-Israel clause, despite protests to the contrary. The Khartoum Resolution and its Three Noes—no recognition, peace, or negotiation with any state called “Israel”—are foremost in their minds. Keep in mind that the international community offered the “Palestinian leaders” their own state twice, and they rejected both offers. Hamas has had “truce” offers on the table while they attacked Israelis in their beds. Their only “solution” is one “Palestine.”
Occupied Gaza
Gaza is now and was autonomous—not occupied—before 7 October 2023. The Israeli border with Gaza has been closed, but so is the Egyptian border; Egypt no longer wants it. There have been no Jews living or stationed or even working in Gaza for over a decade. On 7 October 23, Gaza was under the control of Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Japan, Great Britain, Australia and several other countries.
After being elected to power in Gaza in 2006, Hamas canceled all subsequent elections and ruled as a dictatorship. Since the last Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2009, Gaza has forbidden Jews from entering Gaza and has driven out most Christians. But, Israel hosts two million Arabs, both as Israeli citizens and residents, as well as a handful of Christians. Gaza is, was, and has been “occupied” by ethnic Arabs for centuries, who now call themselves “Palestinians.”
Being Pro-Palestine is not Antisemitic
The screamers make no distinction between supporting “Palestine” and Hamas. Their chants often echo the original Hamas eliminationist charter with its specific no-Israel clause, and the (truly) genocidal ravings of its leadership. Some protestors wear Hamas logos and wave its flag. Many cheered the massacre of 7 October; some still do.
When screamers tell Jews to “go back to Poland,” call for the “Final Solution,” and “global intifada,” and “October 7 again and again,” attack Jews or bar them from campus facilities, they do not ask whether the targets of their rage are pro-Israeli. For the screamers, anyone identifiable as Jews become a target of their invective and violence.
Genocidal Israel
Israel has not tried to wipe out the Palestinian people in the fashion of Hamas’s one-state solution plan for Jews. Before 7 October, some 20,000 Gazans a day asked to work in Israel—on the correct expectation of much higher wages and humane treatment in Israel. If Hamas had come out of its tunnels, separated from its shields, released its surviving hostages (which Hamas itself may not have held), and either openly fought the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or surrendered the organizers of the 7 October massacre, far fewer Gaza shields would have died since.
According to Hamas’s questionable “genocide” figures, roughly 4 percent of the Gazan population have died because of the Israeli response to 7 October. Almost half of those deaths, according to various international observers, were Hamas shooters. IDF commanders have always given extensive warnings before attacking targets, to where some commanders complain of tactical disadvantages. This kind of risk-adverse behavior is unprecedented in warfare, and hardly the tool of “genocide.”
Hamas is a Progressive Organization
There is absolutely nothing “progressive” about Hamas, unless you regard their 8th Century worldview as “progressive.” In Hamas-controlled territory (which was Gaza), public protests against Hamas or its allies such as waving an unapproved sign can get you killed (though there was at least one recently). The 1988 Hamas charter values women primarily as child-bearers. In Hamas-run educational institutions, Hamas segregates women. By design, there are almost no women in prominent positions in business or in government under Hamas.
Any kind non-Islam-approved behaviors, especially the gay and transgender lifestyles, would be in mortal danger in Gaza under a fascistic Hamas regime that has banned homosexual acts and “gender transitions,” rendering “Gays for Palestine” a cross between stupid and delusional. Hamas is about as “progressive” as North Korea.
Lying about causes, villains, heroes and victims won’t help solve the Hamas/Iran problem.
Steele’s Battalion: The Great War Diaries
In WWI, the difference between civilians and soldiers was quite stark, but the slaughter on an industrial scale was also much greater.
Coming Up…
The Combat Arm Of Decision In Blue And Gray
Identifying The Long Dead
And Finally...
On 29 March:
1865: The Appomattox Campaign begins in Virginia, when Robert E. Lee orders the Army of Northern Virginia to withdraw from its siege lines around Richmond and retreat west. The withdrawal triggered the Confederate government’s evacuation of Richmond. Nine days later, Lee would surrender his army in Wilmer Maclean’s parlor at Appomattox Court House.
2016: Patty Duke, age 69, dies in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho of sepsis caused by a ruptured intestine. Long an advocate for mental health in part because of her own bipolar disorder, Duke first came to prominence in the role of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker on both stage and screen.
And today is NATIONAL VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY, commemorating the departure of the last US combat troops, 3rd Bn, 21st Infantry, from Hill 260/Gimletland outside Da Nang, South Vietnam, on this day in 1973.
The major media faithfully report the death count of Palestinians "as reported by Hamas. I have never seen a death count as reported by anybody else. In other words, we have no idea what the death count really is, but it is certainly far less than what is reported by the major media.