"The Quickest Way Of Ending A War Is To Lose It"

"Blind Leading The Blind III" by Peter Howson 1991, Private Collection, London

As Caroline Glick reminds me of the George Orwell quip above, the Israeli Government's "desire to attempt to bolster the popularity of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak ahead of the February 10 general elections" looks set to go :

Since Tuesday it has become clear that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has decided to end the war with Iran's Hamas proxy army in Gaza as quickly as possible. That is, the government has decided to lose the war.

All so called peace proposals on the table consisting of the usual array of EU concilatory 'stop or I'll say stop again' bullshit starting with the assumption that all of Hamas' demands are met as a matter of course, thereby negating all of Israel's by definition, including the all important permanent 'cease fire'. No-one is asking it "to disarm, end its weapons trafficking or commit itself to a permanent cease-fire".

Has everyone conveniently forgotten that Hamas is genocidal? They are not interested in peace or diplomacy, they are simply interested in eradicating the Jews. Period. Hamas militants need the violent clashes. It's what they do. It's their day job, paid for through myriad and seedy channels by Iran, under the general auspice of 'Holy War'. Hamas is an illegal terrorist organization, its purpose the destruction of Israel. Hamas men are Jihadists, all boys future supplies for the course; women, necessary to keep the cycle going.

"The EU is arguably committing a war crime by accepting Hamas as a legitimate side to a dispute. In turn, by accepting the EU as a legitimate interlocutor, Israel itself gives credence to the view that Hamas is a legitimate actor. "

What the hell happened? We have in effect legalized Hamas' illegal aggression, and given it the same consideration as the legitimate defense of the sovereign state of Israel, whilst at the same time making it impossible for her to defend herself against further aggressions without attracting the wrath of the International community. The 'land for peace' in 2005 was a treacherous and ungrateful concept, which simply vindicated the warning that historically any land Israel relinquishes will be used to attack it. Hamas can now comfortably lob rockets from Gaza, giving Israelis 30 seconds to take cover. Yeah right.

The firing of rockets at civilians from densely populated civilian areas is the newest tactic in the war between terrorists who love death and democracies that love life. The terrorists have learned how to exploit the morality of democracies against those who do not want to kill civilians, even enemy civilians.

The attacks on Israeli citizens have little to do with what Israel does or does not do. They have everything to do with an ideology that despises – and openly seeks to destroy – the Jewish state. Consider that rocket attacks increased substantially after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, and they accelerated further after Hamas seized control last year.

The language of the Middle East is clear, why is Israel the only country not allowed to speak it? But speak it they must: "The late King of Jordan had no qualms about using his might to put down a Palestinian uprising during "Black September" in 1970. He ordered refugee camps to be bombed. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people died. The PLO then moved its headquarters to Lebanon. Arafat moved to Cairo and later to Tunis.

Former Syrian President Hafis al-Assad, the father of Syria's present ruler, pulled no punches in fighting insurgent members of the Muslim Brotherhood. He devastated the city of Hama in February 1982, killing between 10,000 and 30,000 civilians. No one accused him of "genocide" -- and if someone had, al-Assad would have asked his critics not to meddle in the domestic affairs of his country."

When are we going to even begin to understand that the war Israel fights is our war. It is the war of today, the war with Islamist extremists who are not interested in diplomacy, and even less in the survival of the infidels. They need a swift and expedient kick in the groin delivered by the entire international community. Zero tolerance internationally, recognition that we are on Israel's side with as many politically incorrect actions as we can muster, and yes I am talking about standing up to Iran:

“......Iran is the most lethal, the most dangerous, and the most aggressive terror master in the world today.” Like the global totalitarian movements and regimes that threatened Western civilization in the last century, the Iranians come with a messianic ideology that admits no compromise with its enemies.  This war will only end with a winner and a loser, not with two contented negotiators. Forget that our enemies want us dead or dominated, they don't want a world at peace in which they will have to deal with real problems of governance.  They are waging jihad, not diplomacy.

“It follows from this that you cannot "solve" Gaza by fighting in Gaza alone, you have to win the terror war.  And to do that, you must accomplish regime change, just as Netanyahu said.  But the crucial regime change must be accomplished in Iran.  Whatever Israel accomplishes in Gaza (and the same holds for our battles in Iraq and Afghanistan), it is only a matter of time before the mullahs reorganize, rearm, and return to battle. And the next battle may involve nuclear weapons.

Hamas is simply acting on the direct instructions of the Iranian Mullahcracy that reigns supreme. Iran is the biggest threat to our way of life, the democracy that we hold dear, the freedom that we cherish and take for granted. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens that the battle over Palestine is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West.

We are all well aware how Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad is modeling himself on Grand-Master-Über-Thug Ayatollah Khomeini (may he rot in Hell for all eternity).

We also know with certainty, that the Mullahcracy has been desperately trying to build their nuclear bomb at least since the early Nineties. We furthermore know today, that with all the various assurances given to stop production in the past, no such efforts were in fact made. Nothing but bold faced lies.

Finally, we know, that for the period of almost two decades, every promise of co-operation, extracted from the Mullahcracy at various times by the U.S., several EU member states, the IAEA, the UN and other such illustrious parties so as to prevent a nuclear Islamic Republic in the heart of the Middle East, has only ever been feigned with one aim in mind, to buy more time for the Mullahcracy to reach nuclear ecstasy.

And the only variable, determining the time-line, remains unchanged: the war will start when our Thug-In-Chief finally manages to get his dirty mitts on the nuclear bomb. Nothing else, no UNSC resolutions, no diplomatic efforts and certainly no appeasement policies will stop the lethally delusional  Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor his Thug-In-Chief.

Victor Davis Hanson tells it how it is:

”There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering, Gaza mosques stuffed with rockets to be used against civilians — all to be collated with creepy Hamas rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel. This is the world in which we now live.

Almost no other issue in recent memory has illustrated the moral bankruptcy of much of the international community. Hamas has no pretensions, like the PA, of being a governing authority; it used violence to rout the PA and then bragged that its charter pledging the destruction of Israel remained unchanged. Israel evacuated Gaza; Gazans in response looted their own infrastructure, alienated both the PA and Egypt,and then sent off more than 6,000 rockets against Israeli civilians, while eagerly becoming a terrorist puppet of theocratic Iran.

Nothing could be more clear: either the fact that a constitutional republic was trying to avoid civilian casualties while a terrorist organization was intent on killing Jewish civilians as it used its own citizens as shields to protect mostly young male terrorists; or the world's craven reaction to all this.

Again all very creepy — the stuff of Tolkien's Mordor. It is now clear that the so-called and much praised "international community," the hallowed U.N., the revered EU, all pretty much are indifferent to the survival of a democratic Israel, or are actively supportive of its terrorist Hamas enemy. Only the U.S. (for now) stands by a constitutional state in its war against a murderous terrorist clique, with annihilation its aim and religious fascism its creed.”

I leave you with Barry Rubin's must read:

Today, people ask, why didn't the Jews of Poland understand the Nazis were going to wipe them out, at least in the earlier period when escape or revolt was more possible? According to contemporary and later eyewitness testimony, because they didn't think Germans would act in such an unpragmatic manner.
[...]
Answer: ideology. A doctrine and belief system will make people act in a way that doesn't fit pragmatic expectations. Why should Hamas start a war against a stronger power? Due to believing itself to be stronger and its need to mobilize mass support. Why should Palestinian leaders reject a state even if it means the end of an increasingly small degree of "occupation"? Due to belief that total victory is inevitable, that compromise is treason, and that their enemies are satanic.
[...]
No matter how much diplomatic aid, sympathy, or money the West gives Hamas — and it has saved Hamas and the PLO over and over from their own mistakes — they will not become grateful or pro-Western. Anti-Western and anti-American sentiment is too valuable and too widespread to disappear. The Palestinians — and Iran's regime, and Syria's government, and Hezbollah, and other Islamists — need scapegoats. Who else are they going to blame for their problems? Themselves?

If you save the terrorists today, they will commit more terrorism tomorrow. If you let them escape the consequences of their own extremism, you can guarantee they will stay extremist and take a lot of the masses with them.
[...]
This is the Middle East of 2008 and not of 1958, 1968, 1978, 1988, or 1998. The Palestinian issue has little effect on any other issue. The real conflict is Iran-Syria against Egypt-Saudi Arabia. Islamists are seeking to conquer the region from Arab nationalists. Radical groups are not interested in happy homelands but jihad and genocide.

And so the issue is not why Israel is attacking Hamas in Gaza now, but why Hamas in Gaza is attacking Israel now.

So fasten your seat belts, it continues to be, as it was before, just a matter of time. The Jews are fighting our war, what will it take for us to understand that? As long as we continue to make excuses at every turn and fail to acknowledge the elephant in the room, nothing will change.

But hey, what the hell, as Christians, let's rant and rave in support of Hamas' genocidal tirade of depraved indifference to human life. After all, specially designed for those who wage war against Allah, it passed a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority this Christmas legalizing crucifixion .

That nails it for me, what about you? Looking for a banner-waving chanting protest to march to, so we can spit some more insults into Israel's face? After all we need to find someone to blame for the Brits promising the same piece of real estate to the Jews and the Arabs.

Shame on us.

P.S. PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO SOME 600 COMMENTS ON PREVIOUS POSTS, THE COMMENTS ON ATB ARE BEING SHOWN IN REVERSE, I.E. LAST COMMENT FIRST.

Comments

[John Houk]

Alexandra, Please bring back this awesome blog!

[MarcH]

Thank you Mac. Shalom to you.

[Ken Pierce]

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Alexandra-said-very-fast-to-fit-into-two-syllables, happy birthday to you...and many more

[mac brachman]

Shalom MarcH: Hope you are well and that you and all your comrades-in-arms make it back home safe and well. Shalom, Mac Brachman

[MarcH]

I have been away from this forum for a very long time, partly because I was actually “away” while serving as an embedded advisor to the U.S. Army in Iraq.

With the current crisis over Jerusalem and with Iran speeding to develop and deploy nuclear weapons and to re-fit its Hizb'allah and Hamas minions, one realizes how fortunate we in the anti-Jihad blogosphere were to have had ATB voice and how much it is now missed.

I hope you are well Alexandra and send you and the regular ATB readers my best wishes.

[itay@israel]

first of all tnx you for blogging. you say-shame on us. but what was after the war with gaza that we kinda won? every time we fight-and we dont see any resalts but pressure of the whole world,expecially usa that is supports us with their money...i think our goverment is just trying to be careful-situation is very complecated at the moment.

[Chip H]

Speaking of losing the war:

Our Af-Pak burn-rate is now TWICE AS MUCH as Viet Nam’s was ($130 billion now, versus $67 billion a year then, **both in 2008 $’s**), when we fighting a REAL army of 412,000, with our REAL army of 536,000; not against an AQ our own intel numbers at less than 100, and no more than 10,000 Tango!

Cost of Viet Nam War = $ 162,620 per NVA w/ H.A. & SAMs
= $ 125,000 per US SOLDIER w/ H.A., AIR & SEA

Cost of Afghan War = $12,871,870 per AQ+TANGO w/ RPGs & IEDs
= $ 1,181,000 per US SOLDIER w/ H.A., AIR & UAVs

How the heck is it possible for a police action against pot shoter's and car bomber's costing TEN TIMES MORE in the same 2008 $'s, per soldier fielded, than the Viet Nam war, where ten thousands lost their lives and millions in Viet Nam?!

Ghani is exactly right, “Because the (mercenary) aid business exists in Afghanistan, any attempt at a Marshall Plan *would never be implemented*.

Security in Afghanistan is to the Pentagon what Mars is to NA$A, a sweet, sweet $130,000,000,000 of *our last remaining life savings* honeypot, and they have no intention of actually achieving it.

[Ken Pierce]

Hi, guys, just checking in.

[12thinfidel]

Alas, but will keep good thoughts for the talented lady for ever.

[mac brachman]

1/5/10. One year anniversary of this post. As Alexandra herself once said, "alas."

[Ken Pierce]

I check in every now and then, Mac...Alexandra has stuff to deal with but I hope she comes back eventually.

[mac brachman]

Eight months and seven days (and another 9/11 anniversary come and gone, alas); should I assume this blog is currently dead or, Juliet-like, in a state of suspended animation so convincing that Romeo did himself in when he discovered her in the family tomb? If so, alas.

[Quest]

From Beirut, I tackle the question of Palestine myself since I'm half Palestinian, half Lebanese. I teach also, and much of these ideas you so beautifully express, I try to explore in my literature classroom. I look forward to more of this.

Best salams,
Q

[Subhash]

Why War? Can anybody tell me why there is war? War between one country to another country? People say that fool persons fight with each others. War is done between the countries by the political orders of highly educated & most knowledgeable persons involved in the ministry & the defense force groups. They are representing their whole country. They are fighting with other country members; then how they will remove terror & crime from this world. Are they fooling? They are fighting for particular matters, their honor or their grievances.

In a country states are not fighting with each other why? are they don't have any matter, any grievance or their honor for fighting? No they don't have the defense force power to fight with each other & they all comes in a central rule & all the defense force is the country force not a state force. So they can't fight even if they have any will for this.

Is it not possible to make whole world a country & all the countries like states of the world. It is possible if all the countries are not agree for this then U.N.O. will make a unique defense force by collecting all the defense forces of its members. This force will be not Indian, not American, not Russian, not British or not any other's defense force; this will be a common defense force of world & participants of all its members is necessary. This will be guided by a world central rule not by the countries rule to make piece & development to the entire world. Then nations have no defense power to fight with each other & countries will become states & world will be become a country. If any country is not agree for this then he will be not a member of U.N.O. & worlds defense force but there is options that other countries can join this & make a unique power of the world then a most strong force will developed whose aim to stop the war from this world to solve the grievances between countries like by a nation between the states to make piece & development on this world, to remove terror & crime from this world & suggest the other countries to join this peacefully. Now this time all the countries & all the human being on this earth wants to live peacefully. We all knows that by war the fighting countries lost many of non returnable things & history says that by war we have not reached to any good solution. The solution is always have been find out only by peacefully & thinking in a group & commonly. Then all the countries will also agree for this.

Then Imagine the heavy budgets spend by the countries for their defense is not needed & can be used for the world development & a day will come tat defense is not needed for war only Police & defense will needed for remove the crime & terror.

[Ken Pierce]

I think I'll stick with (b) all the same, just out of politeness. ;-)

[12thinfidel]

I voted for A) intellectual cowards...only strike the intellectual part, Ken. :)

[Ken Pierce]

[chuckling] Guess they're not gonna take me up on it.

This could either be because (a) they're intellectual cowards.

Or (b) I took too long to get around answering and they figured the conversation was over.

I vote for (b) myself. Sorry about that, guys.

Alexandra, I hope things are going well for you and the family.

[Alice]

Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It believes in violence and blood shed. All such anti-Israeli forces will meet their end soon. This is Alice from Israeli Uncensored News.

[Ken Pierce]

Bloody hell, and now it's 2:30 in the morning, and I strongly suspect that every last one of my comments today has been sadly lacking in charity and good will, as is typically the case when I let myself post in the wee hours when I'm tired and cranky...[sigh] and you wonder why I don't let myself off my personal ATB leash anymore.

My apologies to those who got the rough side of my keyboard. I'll try to be much less impatient and sarcastic next time. If you wish to respond in kind I'll bear it patiently on the grounds that you owe me one.

[Ken Pierce]

Unintentional Irony Department:

>
You need to educate yourself before posting such an inflammatory piece of crap article...It's hard to believe these [i.e., modern-day Israelis] are the same people that were persecuted by the Nazis in WWII, since their actions are remarkably similar.
>

[chuckling] Alexandra, I'm guessing that nothing makes you feel your lack of education more than being corrected by somebody who thinks what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians is "remarkably similar" to what the Nazis did the the Israelis -- and that nothing makes you more ashamed of having said something "inflammatory" than to be thus criticized by a person who plays the Nazi card with such ease and debonair flair.

John, allow me to relieve your mind. (1) "These" are NOT "the same people that were persecuted by the Nazis in WWII," since the overwhelming majority of today's Israelis were not yet born when WWII happened. (Go look up the fallacy of hypostasization, young Grasshopper.) (2) The actions, deeds and attitudes of modern-day Israelis are remarkably less similar to the behavior of the Nazis than are the actions, deeds and attitudes of their Arab opponents -- which probably has something to do with the fact that the ideas and writings of the Nazis not only enjoyed wide popularity in the Arab world back before the fall of Hitler, but have continued to sell openly and briskly in Arab bookstores (especially Palestinian ones) ever since. (3) Anybody who thinks that the treatment of Arabs by Israelis is "remarkably" similar to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis, knows remarkably little about the treatment of Jews by the Nazis -- or else does not know what the word "remarkably" means. I am reminded of Dick Durbin's pitiful attempt to equate Guantanamo to the Nazi death camps, the Stalinist GULag, and the killing squads of Pol Pot, an attempt which did nothing but prove that Durbin not only was a colossal ignoramus on matters of twentieth-century history, but also was too much of a fool not to parade his ignorance.

[Ken Pierce]

Marco,

>
So why isn't everybody over there smacking themselves on the head and saying, "Hey, wait a minute, this sucks!"
>

Let me walk you through this one.

1. In life in general, there are some things you can control and some things you can't.

2. Generally speaking, if you take care of business on the things you can control -- including taking pains not to poison yourself and your children with hatred and resentment and bitterness over the things you can't control in other people -- you end up successful and happy. Now obviously there are exceptions in both directions, but at the cultural level the generalization dominates. In the same way, the fact that an occasional fool hits a slot-machine jackpot doesn't change the fact that the house odds mean that the casino makes money and the gamblers lose it.

3. A culture that raises its children to rise above obstacles through focusing on hard work and achievement in the areas under one's own control -- such as the traditional Jewish or Chinese culture -- is a culture that will produce disproportionately successful people, who will therefore be disproportionately the targets of envy and resentment by their less "fortunate" neighbors. And this envy and resentment will be an order of magnitude greater if the unsuccessful neighbors have been raised to think that the successful culture is said neighbors' natural inferiors -- hence the ferocity with which Jews have always been hated by their less successful neighbors, and with which "uppity" (that is, hard-working and virtuous and successful) black persons were hated by the white trash of the KKK-era South.

4. A culture that raises its children focus on "oppression" by others is a culture that will overwhelmingly doom its children to fail. That is true even where the oppression is real; it is far more catastrophically true when the culture is desperately seeking a scapegoat for its own failures. Failure contains the seeds of success -- but only from those willing to learn from their own failures; and it is not possible to learn from one's own failures if one refuses even to admit that they are failures in the first place.

That brings us to the all-too-common situation in which you have two cultures side-by-side, one of which trains its children to focus on individual achievement in the areas under one's own control, and the other of which trains its children to resent "oppression" and to respond to failure by seeking excuses to claim that one has not failed at all, but instead has been "oppressed." In such a case, the natural result is that the former culture pulls ever further and further ahead of the latter culture -- and, because the latter culture treats the ever-widening gap as ever-more-dramatic proof that the former culture is abusing them, the failing culture spirals even more deeply and ever more rapidly into collapse.

This is especially true because of intracultural self-selection. (You and I, being rational persons, know better than to hypostasize "cultures" except as a pure verbal shorthand; persons less fortunate in their educations are apt to miss this point.) Even the self-destructive culture probably has, at the beginning, a lot of wise individual members who do not share the folly of the majority of their compatriots. But those wise members are hated by their own kind even more viciously than are the "oppressors" -- for they, being wise, tend disproportionately to succeed (since the success is the result of the wisdom). But their very success gives the lie to their fellow-culturalists' attempt to blame failure upon "oppression" by the other culture. And so -- because the defining characteristic of the failing culture is the fact that they are more interested in blaming their failures on others than they are interested in ceasing to fail in the first place -- rather than being treated as examples to be emulated, they are treated as traitors ("Uncle Tom's" or "Oreos," to take an example from a viciously self-destructive culture other than the Palestinian one) to be expelled.

The result is that as time goes by, the failing culture that originally was a mixed bag in which self-destructive members were perhaps only a small majority, or even just a unusually vocal (or unusually violent) minority, tends to move more and more toward an irretrievably pathological state in which practically everybody who hasn't fled the culture is behaving in mutually reinforcing patterns of catastrophic self-destruction.

You see, Marcos, there are and always have been, actually, lots of Palestinians who are good and kind and reasonable people who don't want to spend their lives and their children's lives in hatred, and who simply want to put the past behind them and build solid futures for themselves and their families, and who not only could be brought to buy into our "propaganda," as you unflatteringly label it -- but who aleady did buy in, perhaps two or three generations back.

It's just that those particular Palestinians are pretty damned hard to find in the Gaza Strip these days -- because most of them long ago figured out how to get themselves into America.

(This, by the way, is one of the things that somewhat sadly amuses me when I hear some earnest American college student saying that the Palestinian people are wonderful, kind people, because "I have lots of Palestinian friends and they're wonderful." Um, as it happens, I too know some Palestinian people whom I hold in the highest regard. Guess where I met 'em? Probably the same place the earnest American college student met his wonderful, kind Palestinians friends -- that is, in America. The fact that there might be a connection between being a wise and capable ethnically Palestinian person of good character, and being an ethnically Palestinian person who is not still living in Palestine, usually has never crossed the earnest American college student's mind. Though I'm sure he'll figure it out once he has taken the class in basic logic that all American colleges require as a prerequisite for graduation. Oh, er, hang on a minute...)

[Ken Pierce]

Whoops, that's the problem with not proofreading -- I meant to save the most common pro-Palestinian argument for last, and then by the time I got to the end of the list I was taking it for granted I had already mentioned it. The most common argument:

1. Land is owned by "peoples," not by people, just as Good Things (like "resisting oppression") and Bad Things (like "oppressing indigenous peoples") are both performed by and suffered by "peoples," not by people.

2. If we go back far enough, but not too far (because if we go back far enough our argument will turn out to work against us rather than for us), the land inside Israel belonged to The Palestinian People.

3. Therefore it is The Palestinian People's land, and The Israeli People are squatters and thieves and criminals who may rightfully be expelled by any means necessary, including child-targeting terrorism and open calls to genocide.

Now obviously this argument is hopelessly incoherent as soon as one tears off the facade of pseudo-rationality created by the use of the fallacy of hypostasization...at least, it's obvious if you've ever studied basic logic. That doesn't, however, keep it from being by far the most common anti-Israeli argument. Which says a very great deal indeed about the anti-Israeli contingent, I'm afraid.

[Ken Pierce]

Boy, do I have to be careful here...I don't have time to be pulled into this very much. But for the sake of Mac and the Ghost:

The Palestinian Nightmare is not Israel. It is the character of the Palestinians themselves (collectively, of course, not universally). If every Jew in the world died tomorrow, then (a) the world would be an unspeakably impoverished place, and (b) Palestinian life would continue to be nightmarish, just as it has been for years in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, and (if you happen to be homosexual or even merely a non-Wahabbite variant of Muslim) Saudi Arabia -- to provide just a short list of historically nightmarish Middle Eastern and North African countries in which one might choose to live.

There simply is no rational standard (unless you consider "Mohammed PBUH said so and that settles it" to be a rational argument) by which Israelis can be judged as morally inferior to Palestianians, or their behavior as more morally contemptible than that of the Palestinians -- not even if we pretend for a moment that the fallacy of hypostasization is no fallacy at all, which in itself would be a helluva pretense. Pretty much every argument that I've ever heard in defense of the Palestinians reduces to the following logic, presented in more or less random order (since there are no actual logical connections involved):

1. The strong and capable are always evil; the weak and incompetent are always good; therefore in any cultural conflict the winners are the bad guys (though it sounds more intellectual to call them "the oppressors") and the losers are the good guys (or, more properly, "the oppressed"). Furthermore, any evil actions committed by persons who have been designated "oppressed" is to be forgiven on the grounds that the "oppressors" made them do it. Unless the losers are Jews, in which case the bastards had it coming.

2. Democracy is an intrinsically good thing and anything voted for by a majority of voters is automatically moral, plus there are more Palestinians than there are Jews; so if the majority of Palestinians vote for a political party expressly and openly for the purpose of facilitating genocide against the Jews, their government is "legitimate" and their genocidal intentions not subject to criticism.

3. Any member of an ethnic group whom you don't care for is to be blamed for any evil actions committed by any other member of that ethnic group -- and we don't like Jews. Hence it is okay for Palestinian terrorists deliberately to target Israeli children, because after all Menachem Begin was a real son-of-a-bitch back in the day.

4. Any member of an "oppressed" ethnic group is to be excused for any evil action whatever, because otherwise you would be "blaming the victim."

5. There is no statue of limitations on property ownership; if your great-great-grandfather owned land and lost it as a result of war, that land still belongs to you. Oh, no, wait a second, if you go back far enough then you get to where Judea belonged to Jews...so, let's see, there must be a statute of limitations after all -- let's say, right about just-long-enough-to-rationalize-Palestinian-grievance-mongering-but-not-one-damn-minute-longer-than-that-because-God-forbid-we-should-give-the-Jews-an-excuse.

6. And by the way, the Jews are always the bad guys.

There is simply no moral standard that can be applied impartially to both the Israelis and the Palestinians without revealing the immense moral chasm that separates the Israelis from the Palestinians -- to the very great credit of the Israelis and to the very great shame of the Palestinians. I will therefore throw down a challenge to Richard, John, and rez:

Without reference to the events of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, set forth your philosophy of just war. Do not bother, by the way, appealing to international law; international law is itself one of the institutions that has to be justified, it being transparently true that human history is chock-full of evil laws under cover of which great evil has been perpetrated -- and that is especially true when the attempt is made to impose "international law" upon people (such as the Israelis) who never agreed to be subject to it and who have no reason to believe that they would ever receive from the artificial institutions of international law protection adequate to justify the yielding of their own natural right to self-defense.

If you undertake to set forth your ethical principles, then I will undertake to show that either your philosophy is childish and incoherent and a mere costume by which you attempt to disguise from yourself and others the fact that your partisanship is nothing more than simple anti-Semitism, or else that your own philosophy requires you, unless you are prepared to stand openly condemned as a shameless hypocrite and self-deceiver, to judge Israel to be the victim and the Palestinian terror-mongerers the war criminals.

And then, who knows? One of us might teach the other something (and for all I know I'll be the one who sees the light).

P.S. Just for the record, I am neither a Jew nor a Baptist, and have no patience for anybody who attempts to rationalize the existence of Israel on the basis of any sort of "natural Jewish homeland" argument whatsoever. There is nothing the empirical evidence of the past half-century or so of Middle Eastern history teaches more clearly than that the human rights of the ordinary, peaceful, hard-working Arab have a decent chance of being respected by an Israeli government, very little chance of being respected by a government run by Arabs in general, and a snowball's chance in hell of being respected by a government run by Syrians or Palestinians. For that reason, and pretty much that reason alone, I am a fervent supporter of Israel in the conflict in question. If you're a Palestinian living in Israel proper who thinks Israel should be abolished, you can say so not only out loud, but actually on the floor of the Knesset. Good luck saying out loud on a Gaza street that Hamas is run by corrupt politicians -- if, that is, you care to survive to see the next sunrise.

[mac brachman]

I can only second LMI's response to John. I don't have time to respond to John's lies, distortions, and naked bigotry (he's obviously Jew-obsessed, like all PIGS of his ilk- no mention of crimes against Jews, including the still unresolved bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, which all and sundry know was directed by Iran and probably assisted by its Syrian and Lebanon Hizbollah (leader: Hasan "I hope all Jews in the world move to Israel, it will make it easier for us to kill them all" Nasrallah) puppets, but then John and PIGS of his ilk never have anything to say about crimes against the Jews). John, you are evil filth, a liar, bigot, pig, Jew-hating scum. Go befoul some other website. To all others, happy Easter and happy Passover. Shalom, Mac Brachman

[LilMissIndie]

and brutality unleashed upon them by the 4th largest standing army in the world

What drivel. If the 4th largest standing army in the world truly unleased brutality upon the people of Palestine, there would be nothing left of Palestine. I am so tired of hearing that Israel is the criminal and the "peaceful" people of Palestine are living under apartheid conditions. Please. I am old enough to remember South African apartheid and to have traveled to NYC to demonstrate against it. Peacefully. Crowds in Israel have been known to march against their own government for peace, while crowds in Palestine dance in the streets to celebrate the deaths of their teenage sons (and now, of course, daughters) who blew themselves up, or the carnage created in the U.S. or in Israel by terrorists. How many Israelis blow themselves up in Palestine shops, not caring if young people are present? How many Jewish settlers send rockets from their back yards into Palestine streets?

I don't know why I'm responding to your silliness here. I rarely visit this blog anymore because Alexandra rarely posts, and so it's disheartening to come looking for an intelligent, passionate piece and find idiots who just happened to have found another place to spew their racist ramblings. If you had anything interesting to say, other than your "Jew evil, Palestinian persecuted" standup routine, it would be different.

[John]

You need to educate yourself before posting such an inflammatory piece of crap article.

Today, Palestinians are segregated into concentration camps, their houses are demolished, and they have limited access to fresh water. Living conditions are horrible. In fact, analysts agree that Palestinians living in Israel are worse off than Africans living under apartheid.

I applaud the criticism Israel is receiving for their crimes against humanity. It's hard to believe these are the same people that were persecuted by the Nazis in WWII, since their actions are remarkably similar.

[Beautiful]

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[Ghost Dansing]

desert rose

[12thinfidel]

Richard and Humanity may wish to review a few items regarding their muslim sympathetic posts supporting the Paleo's:

No other religion calls for a conversion or death. Nor was any other religion founded by a murderer, terrorist and pedophile.(Mohammed the pedophile for profit married a 6 year old girl when he was 54 years old and raped her when she was 9.)

They won't admit that allah was really the pagan title of an idol in Muhammad's parents village. This idol was supposed to be the "moon god" hence the crescent moon found on top of every mosque in the world today.

The demonic part is self apparent. Muhammad was fooled by Satan, see the Satanic verses. Muslims know that this marks the "prophet" as the fraud he is. They even took those verses out of the Koran. The koran of today is rather different from the koran of mohammed`s day because they kept altering it`s texts and passages.

Muhammad was trying to put himself in charge of a Moon-worship cult that the local Jews would respect so while in Mecca he took up the tradition of calling pigs "unclean".

Muhammad, well who knows why he hated women so much. To this day bisexuality is so common in Saudi and it's puppet muslim states that Muhammad never really did anything firm about punishing pedophiles. What he did say is that "the majority of people in Hell are women".

The Koran promised homosexual pedophilia to any Muslim that dies killing infidels. "Rivers of wine and young boys fine as pearls."

Rather than work, Muhammad had his followers steal from caravans while in Medina. The fact is he was a common thief. Mo encouraged his handful of followers to attack the caravans, kill the men, rape the women and bring the booty (20% for himself) to please Allah, while assuring them that if they are killed their rewards will be rivers of wine, and many virgins in the other world. All these sickening deeds are backed by koran and hadith.. [The Koran 55:56; 55:58; 78:33; 56:12; 52:16-17, 24; 56:35-38; 52:20]

Nothing personal, Richard or Humanity, but a Christian name like Richard, or a non-humane name like Humanity is a joke to your posted trash.

[mac brachman]

Those familiar with this website are aware that I have much more pressing matters than to address the comments of such as "Richard" and "Humanity," who have chosen to use this forum to attack Israel and to characterize my attempts to place the recent Gaza war into a larger context of 60+ years of Arab/Muslim rejection of Israel, ongoing attacks on its civilian population, etc., as "pitiful," and who have resorted to regrettable but wholly predictable ad hominem and ad feminam attacks on those with whom they disagree (characterizing the website as "All Things Baleful" and depicting Alexandra as "an Ann Coulter wannabe"). I won't bore the great humanitarians Richard and Humanity with details about the travails in my familial life (those familiar with my posts on this website are quite aware, and they matter to me infinitely more than those two). I will say that I'm quite disappointed to see the continued near-moribund state of this website and the lack of answer to the attacks launched by Richard, Humanity, and others of their ilk, which I am not currently prepared to respond to on a regular basis, either in terms of time commitment or emotional resources given the nature of life for me at the moment. I encourage those of you who have found this website a welcome part of their day to try to revive it and answer back when those whose lives are centered around the scapegoating and demonization of Israel engage in their sadistic mental masturbation on this website; I cannot (and will not) do it on my own. Shabbat Shalom and Shalom, Mac Brachman

[Richard]

mac..
I really don't know what is worse..
That this sort of utter nonsense is posted on the net or that there are some people like you who lap it up.
A sound reading of history would be a good idea.. Try going back to, oh, about 5200 BC The Sumerians, with a quick dip into Romans and Hebrews (about 2000 or less years ago) and then from 1897 up to the present day, via 1948, 1967 and last year.

Your pitiful attempts to equate the forces that the bedraggled Palestinians can field against the weaponry and brutality unleashed upon them by the 4th largest standing army in the world, is just what we need to help people understand the racist poison and inhumanity inherent in your stance.
So Keep it up.. the world has woken up..
The days of the Zionists Dream, the Palestinians Nightmare, are almost over.

[Humanity]

Israel started this war, when they build a modern concentration camp calling it Palestine. Oppressing, abusing, demolishing peoples homes, murdering children and sniper shooting aid workers and reporters. No people in the world are called terrorist when they defend themselves. The only real terrorist is the State Israel!! Your ” blog” is just another pro Zionist Nazi propaganda. You must be the biggest Joke....to bad your talent of drawing has gone to such a waist

[mac brachman]

Richard: I'm sorry you disapprove of this blog. I suggest you not read it. Go read the neo-Nazi websites, or those adulating Hizbollah (Sheik Nasrallah, cowardly Iran puppet who would be just another thug killed by rival thugs if not for his protectors in Tehran: "I wish all the Jews would move to Israel, it would make it easier to kill them all") and Hamas (motto: teaching our children, from the cradle, that Jews are "the sons and daughters of pigs and apes" for 20 years). You say that phosphorous, etc. are not beautiful. Here are a few more things that are not beautiful: Katyusha rockets fired indiscriminately from Gaza locations into Israeli towns, bombing schoolchildren's buses, teaching that Jews are subhuman or the spawn of Satan, blowing up pizzerias, using the opportunity UNILATERALLY provided by Israel, first in S Lebanon and then in Gaza, not to build economically and culturally vibrant communities, but instead to impose fascist rule by destroying opposition and to use the territories to launch acts of war against Israel. over a period of many years. But then you don't give a damn as long as it's Israeli sovereignty being violated and Jewish blood being spilled. Go read other websites. As for the "baleful" Alexandra, she needs no defense from me. She is no Coulter or Coulter-wannabe. Obviously you haven't bothered to read her posts.

[Richard]

Most who post here in support of the Apartheid State that is Israel should have a passing acquaintance with International Law, Geneva Conventions and common decency.. oh... and the truth.
It is almost laughable reading this stuff on this "beautiful" blog.. Not much Beautiful about Phosphorous, DIME, flechettes and total destruction.. Particularly when the IOF were the aggressors all along and broke the ceasefire that had held for several months.

Ignorant, evil and utterly pretentious.
All things baleful.. Might be more appropriate for the Coulter wannabe running this cessblog.

[12thinfidel]

REZ, you seeem to overlooked the references to 'apostate' and 'infidels' in Mo's book, and 'penalty' for being one. Is Jizya in the non-Arabic version of the book you have? Any obtuse notations to pigs, dogs , monkeys in your unabridged (pbuh) pamphlet?

[rez]

"I thought God told Joshua to conquer the crap out of Palestine." you said conquer? conquer palestine doesn't mean they have to kill the civilanz. Allah and Mohammad SAW never order to attack another country. muslem only allowed to fight if it is necessary. to defend our self is one of the reason. yup Moses (we call it Musa as) and Jesus (we call it Isa as) are two of the 25 of ALLAH's Nabi(Prophet). we call them (Nabiullah) but Isa as (you call him Jesus) weren't GOD for us, not the GOD's son either. and what they (Isa as and Musa as) said is what ALLAH said. and ALLAH is one, with no son, no parrents, no mom, no Dad. ALLAH never order us to make a violence to anyone, except they attack us first. ALLAH order us (in Qur'an) to love each other like they love their self. to love your neighbour, your friend, and love everyone even they have a different religion. even to protect everyone (even they have a different religion). that's writen in Qur'an.

the promises land? did you mean Palestine??? Palestine is belong to Palestine's people. it never belong to Israel, NEVER EVER. they stole Palestine from Palestine's people. now see, who kill the most civilanz? in Qur'an Isa as (Jesus for you) and Musa as (moses 4 you) is a lovely people, they never hurt anybody. b'coz ALLAH told them to love everybody, just like what ALLAH said to Muhammad SAW. I mean ... if Israel's peoples is the followers of those two, it means they must be lovely. but....see.... how they killed the civilanz of palestine. I wonder is the Israel's peoples know those two (moses and jesus) very well? I bet no.

[justaskingisall]

rez,
Babelfish sucks. I bet somebody among you Gazans could make some bank with a decent Arabic <-> English translator. Hey, while we’re at it, since Mohammed “restored” the faith of Abraham, Moses and Jesus to it’s “true” form, what did he say about all that promised land stuff? I thought God told Joshua to conquer the crap out of Palestine.

[rez]

don't u ever thinking that israel is the real teroris??? they killed palestinian.israel just want to have the palestine alone with himself. the heartless israel army killed thousand of men, women, even child of palestine. where is the humanity they always said. that every body has the same place? palestinian just try to defend in their own place, their own island, their own country. so why that damn israel keep kill the innocent people??? for the place that they desire to be israel own country??? ohhh come on.... before that jews came to palestine, every cm place that belongs to israel now was palestine. and that land which israel now after never belongs to israel. NEVER. it belongs to palestine. but that damn israel take the land by FORCE. seee.... i'm sure all of the zionisme knew about the history of israel. how the came to palestine and took almost all of the palestine from palestinian by FORCE. and killed almost all the civilanz of palestine.
israel is war criminal. can we close our eyes and ears from their action????

did israel GOD tell them to attack palestine??? that cruel god must be order them to did it. why they can't stop??? love each other? let palestinian life for peace. and give them back their country that have been stolen from palestinian by zionis.

how they lose the war??? if they lose it, they'll lost their own home. so what they suppose to do to deffend their self and their own home while that damn israel never stop spread terror among them.

islam never give terror..... islam offer peace. Allahu Akbar

[justaskingisall]

It seems that most people don’t mind being conquered or losing wars, as long as they perceive, within a time frame acceptable to them, that the lives of their families have improved as a result. (Japan – Germany after WWII, Egypt after Alexander, Roman provinces, etc.)

But if they lose and they are perceiving no improvement or a decline in their quality of life, issues happen. (The depression of aboriginal Americans and Australians, Germany post WWI, Romanized Celts in Britain, etc.)

When the Jews retook Palestine (and this is how most Palestinians perceive it), the Arabs who’s families lives improved usually moved on with their lives. The Arabs who perceived their quality of life had declined were far more ‘ripe for the picking’ by corrupt megalomaniacs like Arafat and the Iranian gangster mullahs.

Theoretically, losers can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and there are certainly cases where this has happened. But in a competitive world this is difficult, and much easier to preach than practice.

If this theory is true, then Israel and its supporters bear as much responsibility for this self-destructive cancer they’ve created as do the wealthy Arab nations who’ve turned their backs on Palestinian refugees.

[LilMissIndie]

My apologies for hitting "post" before I calm down. I don't mean to call people insane or idiots or anything else, and all people are entitled to their opinions. It's just that I try to see both sides of every conflict, but this one...it's so hard to see the other side if you've been watching this for years as I have.

I'm with Ghost in "...waiting for something good to happen." So I'll keep praying and waiting on the Lord for something good to happen.

[LilMissIndie]

First, Alexandra, let me say how wonderful it is to have you back. Since this most recent Hamas mess began, I've been hoping for a post from you.

"Israel is a big menace to the world"

What?

In what insane parallel world does one have to live to regard Israel as the aggressor in these conflicts? I am saddened for all innoncents who suffer, but if I vote in a criminal government whose sworn oath is to destroy a neighboring country and which commences to firing rockets at them, can I strictly be called innocent? People who cry foul every time Israel defends herself against her enemies make me want to scream. Time and time again she backs off at the insistence or coaxing from her friend (us) or the "international community", and what is her reward? More of that community's "counting to three" for the true aggressors.

The idea of luring them into the modern world is enticing, but not realistic. People who voted in Hamas are not likely to have been looking for ways to improve their technology, their employment, or their economics. The media would like us to believe that Hamas did some unbelievably clever PR campaign, wherein they "cared" for the people, and rebuilt their homes, blah, blah, blah. I could believe more that they were afraid of Hamas retribution if they didn't accept it. But I cannot believe that a thinking, seeing, hearing person could have voted for Hamas without knowing for what he was voting. They obsess about destroying Israel and don't give a crap about our Western ideas, modern business models, commercial successes. And they hate us because we do.

I am not naive; I don't see Israel as some innocent maiden. Israel has done things that I was disappointed to learn about. My own country has. But, unlike the citizens of Israel, we haven't had to inure ourselves to sirens, or suicide bombings of buses, hotels, pizza parlors. No other country puts up with that crap.

Well, again, Alexandra, welcome back. Happy New Year, and one that finds you posting here often.

[Ghost Dansing]

it is all very frustrating....

[justaskingisall]

Why do they all want to blow themselves up, instead of becoming orthodontists or hockey players or Peace Corps volunteers or movie stars or surfer bums? More to the point, why can't we sell them on this?

The answer, apparently, is spelled out in the Holy Koran, a work of Medeival Arabia, followed later by subsidiary explication in the form of hadiths and suras written by the faithful of scholarly bent.

There’s more to the equation than tribalistic brainwashing.

The survivors of Jonestown have claimed that most of the victims were decent loving hard-working folks, who’d been suckered in by a convincing sales pitch geared towards their idealism, then kept in by various psychopathic control techniques. I’d study more the difference between Palestinians who are well-adjusted orthodontists or soccer players within Israel itself, and the ones living on handouts in an overcrowded camp.

[Alexandra]

Yes Tom, I understand where you are coming from. No one wants to see innocent people suffer, least of all Israel. No other sovereign nation in the world would have been as tolerant as she has been, least of all us.

But the question should be: "Who voted Hamas in, and WHY?" Is it the same "innocent" people who respect death of their family (wives and children) more than life? It's a concept we cannot even begin to fathom, and is it the same concept that compels us to expect a civilized nation such as Israel to remain the restrained victim of constant attack because it values life. Is that why we use the word "disproportionate"? Because we expect Israel to be bound by an ethical code of the West, and the Palestinians to be bound by the code of "desperation" which allows carte blanche behavior. Israel in turn is supposed to tolerate and exercise restraint beyond human capability.

These "innocent" people did not vote Hamas in to better their life or improve their children's education. They voted them in to fight for the cause of obliterating their Zionist enemies with whatever funds they receive from Iran. None of that money has ever gone to the people and they knew that when they voted them in. So when they spend every cent of those millions on new weapons and every waking moment planning their attacks, instead of building a decent life for themselves and food and education for their families, where is their consideration for their innocent wives and children?

I put it to you that they have none. They use them as human shields one day and public relation tools the next when they don't allow them to be buried until all the posed photographs have been taken to further their cause. "Unthinkable cruelty" we protest, but "way of life" for them.

I remember a couple of years ago Fatah seized 1,000 Qassam rockets and 7 Iranian military trainers at the Gaza University. Who cared about their children being in harms way then? Or the story of the 21 year old Palestinian woman who was treated in an Israeli hospital as a part of Israel's aid plan, and who promptly came back to that same hospital packed with 10kg explosives in order to blow herself up and kill the very people who restored her to health. In fact upon being arrested she admitted that the aim was to kill as many children as possible.

Can you ever imagine an Israeli soldier or civilian ever saying that?

As I said, these "innocent people" voted Hamas in to further their cause of terrorist activities, not to better their lives, but to sacrifice it for the "cause". Therefore trying to apply our own moral codes of conduct is simply naive, and can only lead to more Israeli deaths.

Whilst the answer to the present hostilities is not a simple one, Israel has to take a stand, no matter what the cost.

[Tom G]

Innocent people are dying. It has been forever thus! The human (?) race provides us with endless examples of hatred, genocide, murder - always wrapping the disgusting spectacle in a self-serving context of legalese, historical precedent, religous persecution, political advantage, hubris, idolatry and greed, just to name a few.
Since, (this time) we have the good fortune to avoid the bombs and bullets, we become impassionate spectators watching TV for the next loud flash and boom. It will only really matter when we, or our loved ones, face the murderous nature of mankind in our own streets and homes. Then, as our life-blood drains away, we will regretably accept that the human race is not capable of sustaining a peaceful existence. Bless the victims and those who cling to the belief of a world in peace.

[Ghost Dansing]

Noted 12th..... I'm thrilled....

[rami]

thanks so much.
but i believe strongly that israel is a big menace to the world.
all i hope is that the palestinians will soon have their freedom and salvation from their zionist occupiers whether with hamas or without it
injustice and suffering will only produce terror and hate.
we are still awaiting the jewish ghandi and i hope he will appear soon to save israel from itself.
thanks.

[the12thinfidel]

Here's something good, GD:
from www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSL05686115

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, May 5 (Reuters) - "By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian militants say, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli air strike that killed the 33-year-old last week also laid bare his apparent double life and embarrassed a U.N. agency which has long had to rebuff Israeli accusations that it has aided and abetted guerrillas fighting the Jewish state.

In interviews with Reuters, students and colleagues, as well as U.N. officials, denied any knowledge of Qiq's work with explosives. And his family denied he had any militant links at all, despite a profusion of Islamic Jihad posters at his home.

But militant leaders allied to the enclave's ruling Hamas group hailed him as a martyr who led Islamic Jihad's "engineering unit" -- its bomb makers. They fired a salvo of improvised rockets into Israel in response to his death.

Qiq's body was wrapped in an Islamic Jihad flag at his funeral, pictorial posters in his honour still bedeck his family home this week, and a handwritten notice posted on the metal gate at the entrance to the school declared that Qiq, "the chief leader of the engineering unit", would now find "paradise".

That poster was removed soon after Reuters visited the Rafah Prep Boys School, run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. Staff there said on Monday that UNRWA officials had told them not to discuss Qiq's activities."

Ok, maybe not good news for the UN, but there's a science teacher job opening now in Gaza....

[Ghost Dansing]

I'm waiting for something good to happen.....

[Alexandra]

My friend Andy McArthy has an interesting point: "I argue that there is no international law of warfare because Israel, like the U.S., has wisely declined to join the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.  It has therefore not consented to Protocol I's effort to convert warfare from a military campaign into a hyper-legal regulatory exercise that favors terrorist factions over national armed forces."
"Most of the world has signed on to Protocol I — including, regrettably, our NATO allies (the Brits ratified it in 1998, the same year Blair's government incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law).  It is on the basis of this consensus — among countries that have either abdicated their national-defense responsibilities or stand to gain by Protocol I's tilting of the field toward terrorists and so-called "national liberation" movements — that Israel and the U.S. are now routinely accused of war crimes.  But a set of obligations only constitutes "international law" if a country has agreed to be bound by it.  Israel and the U.S. have not agreed to be bound by Protocol I.  Consequently, there is no law violation in failures by Israel or us to meet its impossible terms (impossible, that is, if the objective of a military campaign is to be victory)."

However, I still think they will not finish the job, the election pressure is too strong.