Just happened to see an interview on an Australian TV station with a Jewish journalist who had interviewed a top Hamas leader, and after interviewing this Hamas leader this journalist’s belief was that Hamas’ goal was to conquer and occupy all of Israel, and to kill all of the Jews.
Asked his opinion on the fate of the hostages, this journalist said that—in view of what he knew of Hamas—he did not believe that any of these hostages would survive.
Sad to say, I believe that he is likely correct in this very pessimistic evaluation of the hostage’s chances of survival.
I read an interview with one man whose daughter was missing at first. He expressed relief that she had been found dead, because if she had been kidnapped, she would have experienced unspeakable horrors.
(Of course, in the best of all possible outcomes, she would have been found alive.)
As military operation against Hamas enters the 6th day, the Israeli military carried out airstrikes on the Syrian airports of Aleppo and Damascus. Both airports, previously linked to Iranian weapons supply to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, were knocked out of service by the strike, Syrian state media confirmed.
The simultaneous strikes on Thursday morning took place ahead of the Iranian foreign minister’s trip to Syria, forcing his plane to land in Baghdad, Iraq. Besides Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Syria is a key ally for Iran. Iran’s Islamic Guard (IRGC) and Hezbollah have set up bases in the country. Iran’s forward military buildup in recent years suggest that Tehran wants to turns Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and Syria into a staging ground for future terrorist attacks and incursions. […]
Diverting from its standard practice of confidentiality, Israel admitting hitting Syria’s two main airports linked to Iranian weapons transfer to terrorists, the Israeli media reported. The official admission shows Israel is willing to openly take on Iran and its proxies following Saturday’s terrorist attack carried out by Iranian-sponsored terrorist group Hamas. […]
Additionally, during the strikes, a plane on which Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was in the air heading out of Iran, landing shortly afterward in Baghdad. The foreign minister is reportedly expected to visit Lebanon in the coming days.
CFP put up two links to the same IsraeliPM X page under the headlines, 1) ” These are the photos Netanyahu showed to Anthony Blinken” and 2) “Warning: Photos are extremely graphic”.
Too much “extremely graphic” for X: poof, it’s gone.
CFP amends his headline. It now reads “These are the photos Netanyahu showed to Anthony Blinken. Twitter restricts viewing, only registered users can see the photos.”
I have a post with links to several thoughtful articles/posts about the atrocity:
Well, it’s from the WaPo, which I’ll admit is pretty far from an unimpugnable source.
I think it is true. All kinds of terrorist enablers are having second thoughts now that Israel is flattening whole blocks. Qatar can smell the smoke on the wind.
I wonder if the Left in Israel is feeling even a tiny bit guilty with distracting the Israeli Government’s focus from the terrorists to their opponents on the home front.
My guess is they do not.
The Israeli Left considers Netanyahu to be THE REAL ENEMY.
And that HAMAS and the other terror groups to simply be Israel’s opponents.
None of that excuses the massive intelligence failure by Israel which, purportedly spends BILLIONS OF SHEKELS each year on keeping track of terror groups. It will be stomach churning reading to learn how terribly all those brilliant “intelligence analysts” – both Israeli and American – missed it.
Then, again, after 9/11 all the US did was crack down on sovereign American Citizens trying to fly from place to place,
All kinds of terrorist enablers are having second thoughts now that Israel is flattening whole blocks.
Chases Eagles:
Agreed. I think for Western enablers those second thoughts started with the horror and cruelty of the initial Hamas attacks. For instance BLM put up that disgusting “I stand with Palestine” statement then took it down.
I don’t believe this is just the latest in the “lather, rinse, repeat” cycle of attacks on Israel.
Things work until they don’t. Hamas has gone too far.
Unless this conflict sparks WW3 — a real, though I hope small, possibility — I think this works against Hamas and nets to a better world.
Did anyone catch Antony Blinken’s joint presser with Netanyahu? I was up early and caught it in entirety live. Pledged full and total support (unless the word parsers can break it down) for Israel. Pleasantly surprised by his speech but wondering if it will be tempered down or walked back,
The funny thing about Honest A. Blinken is that nothing that he says can be believed.
(The same is true for the entire administration in which he serves…but then “What is Truth?”, anyway…)
OTOH, maybe he IS speaking the truth…at least for the next little while—day? days? week? weeks?…
…even if one really ought to remember those golden words of wisdom: “…but the (political) science changes!”
(Golly…Sure WOULD be nice if Honest A. would mumble, even off-mic, something kinda like…”Garsh, ‘we’ should never’ve given the Palis and the Eye-ranians all those millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars….” Actually, WOULD be rather nice if Honest A. even mentioned the Eye-raninans at all…)
File under: Remember the 6 Billion.
JNS TV, Jonathan Tobin talks with Tony Badran on “US appeasement of Iran led to the mass saughter of Jews” (ongoing premier of show, now 37 mins in): https://youtu.be/cFM4o_hiEvA?si=DZWMV_-h6KhkshV8
I think they are scared. Israel may find a casus belli against Iran before this is over. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
@ sdferr – CFP links are too numerous to chase down all of them, but here are three that I thought worth mentioning, all regarding the fog-machines of war run by the Arabs and their American allies.
First: Hamas is back to their well-known playbook of faked photos and the associated lying.
Second, in the category of “how to report on a war from only one side,” note that NBC’s focus on the plight of the Gazans (which is genuinely horrible) neglects to give more than cursory mentions of what happened in Israel (which was apocalyptically horrendous), and that the Gazans voted for Hamas leadership and support their attacks.
Third, the only proper response to the NYT’s continuing display that it never met a violent authoritarian dictatorship that it didn’t love (the Times story itself was a tie for the second category)..
That is actually “disgusted” readers, but they should have dropped the NYT’s propaganda rag a long time ago. However, better late than never to have your eyes opened (although many are clearly sufferers of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Syndrome and will probably continue to believe this is the only story the paper got wrong).
Continued:
“Painfully Hard And Painfully Easy Analysis”— https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/painfully-hard-and-painfully-easy-analysis
Key grafs:
‘Some analysis is painfully hard. Some analysis is easy, but looking at related facts is painful….
‘…Meanwhile, analysis of the geopolitical fallout from 10/7 is both painfully simple and painfully hard.
‘The simple part is that this war is going to get much worse, fast. Israel is now blockading Gaza of fuel, food, and water, and vowing to destroy every Hamas member globally. Last night saw a false alarm of Hezbollah opening a second front, sparking more chaos in northern Israel. False though it was, Israel is already exchanging fire with South Lebanon and with Syrian militias. When the ground war starts, imminently, so will regional escalation….
‘However, harder to analyze is the US claiming its intelligence now thinks Iran was “surprised” by the Hamas attack, rather than being the puppet master of it, even as the EU’s Von der Leyen was explicit in mentioning Iran in her public comments. Sadly, one has to note US intelligence agencies will say whatever is politically convenient in an election year where it helps the White House to be able to say there is no need to strike Iran even while backing Israel.[This last emphasis mine; ALL OTHER emphasis in original; Barry M.] What that means in terms of deterrent, or lack of it, remains to be seen.
‘Equally hard to parse is Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman phoning Iranian President Raisi for 45 minutes to pledge joint support for the Palestinians against Israel, mirroring what some other observers are seeing in social media posts across the Gulf….
‘So, another tense day of war looms ahead of an even tenser Friday. That analysis is easy. And painful.’
In re Blinken’s speech: if I were one of the Democrats’ foreign “partners” I would have a case of serious whiplash by now.
First Biden Inc. rolls out the red carpet for Putin in Ukraine, then jerks it out from under him.
Then they give Iran everything needed to finally obliterate Israel, but warn them not to use it.
Are they (a) playing some kind of long game that no one else fathoms, such that the fake-outs have some purpose; (b) monumentally inept, because they didn’t mean to give Russia and Iran any encouragement; (c) or backtracking on their original genuine invitations to mayhem, because of the backlash from Ukraine & Israel (inept not to have expected it, for sure; knaves can be fools as well).
Via Instapundit, Commander Salamander’s modified three Course of Action, from mildest to most severe. “B” is what he now considers most likely, a Danzig-like de-population of Gaza. Pay them to leave, after killing actual Hamas. (My additional comment: There are no good reasons why a Gaza, fully Israeli, could not be as prosperous as Tel Aviv.)
I suspect Blinken has tunnel vision, and expected to win over Iran and Russia with concessions, but didn’t think through all the possible results. Biden’s “minor incursion” comment was telling. The US might have looked the other way to “minor incursions” in both Ukraine and Israel, but things got out of hand.
I think there might be a deeper agenda the Iranians may be following. Inciting Israel to make real war on the Palestinians could draw other Arab nations into the conflict. Reducing both the Israelis and the Arabs is a win-win for the Iranians. I know someone who lived in Iran as a child. His take on Iranians is that the Persians were a big deal when people were fighting with swords and they still think they are. I can see Israel sending air strikes against Iran, but not much else. There’s no love lost between the Iranians and the Arabs.
JFM:
No other Arab nation except those who are already Iranian puppets has a particle of interest in being drawn into this war.
It’s possible that decapitating the Iranian government may allow the Persians to take over.
BREAKING NEWS at just before 8PM Eastern:
Rep. Steve Scalise has decided to drop out of the House Speaker’s race, Axios reports.
The IDF notified the United Nations at midnight on Friday that the entire Palestinian population north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within 24 hours, a UN spokesperson says.
The message indicates that the IDF could be readying to launch a ground invasion after six days of aerial bombardment in response to the massive Hamas onslaught on Saturday.
Roughly 1.1 million Palestinians live north of Wadi Gaza, the spokesperson says in a statement.
The warning applied to UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities in those areas.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” the spokesperson adds. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
The spokesperson says the warning was delivered to team leaders of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN’s Department of Safety and Security in Gaza by their liaison officers in the IDF.
Israel has already imposed a complete siege on Gaza; shutting off water, electricity and gas; shuttering its own border crossings into the enclave; and bombing Egypt’s Rafah crossing, temporarily rendering it unusable as well.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan tears in into the United Nations over the latter’s response to Israel warning all 1.1 million Palestinians living north of Wadi Gaza to evacuate by midnight on Saturday to the southern Strip.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” a UN spokesperson said earlier. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
Hitting back, Erdan says, “The UN’s response to Israel’s early warning to the residents of Gaza is a disgrace! For many years, the UN turned a blind eye to the arming of Hamas and its use of civilian populations and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip for murder and for stockpiling its weapons.”
“Now, instead of standing with Israel whose citizens were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists and which still tries to minimize harm to non-combatants, it preaches specifically to Israel,” Erdan says.
“It would be better for the UN to focus now on returning the captives, condemning Hamas and supporting Israel’s right to defend itself,” he adds.
Hot Air pointed to a post at Ace (by one of his team) that addressed the WH denial of Iranian involvement:
Our “Intelligence” Agencies Say “Nevermind Hamas Explicitly, Publicly Thanking Iran for Helping Them Attack Israel,” Our “Intelligence” Finds That Iran Had No “Direct” Role In the Attacks
Experts say that (some) Democrats’ attempts to distance themselves from their terrorist clients (and patrons) is a bit too little too late.
…
In other words: The leftwing criminal junta at the top of our “intelligence” agencies have cleared themselves of responsibility for funding this!
As an Intel guy, I’ve given hundreds of briefings. I even taught how to give an effective Intel briefing. If I had ever said that, my commanders would have immediately asked what did that mean? If no direct role, what kind of indirect roles?
The Intel guy briefs what he knows, what he doesn’t know that he is trying to find out, and when asked, what does it mean? In Intelligence there is no room for equivocation. Commanders must deal in facts. If not, soldiers die.
That doesn’t appear to be a consequence that bothers our leaders very much.
On the perennial question of why American Jews support the Democrats who hate Israel, this comment at that same post started a good discussion.
266 Michael Medved once had a good explanation for why Jews vote liberal. It goes back to Europe, where the conservative parties tended to be affiliated with churches (either Catholic or Protestant) and had an overt anti-Jewish bent. Then the Jews came here and just assumed that our conservatives were similarly anti-Jewish, so they reflexively voted for the liberals. Who were just, if not more[,] anti-Jewish, than the old European conservatives, but just hid it better.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at October 12, 2023 04:17 PM (9ITg2)
I’d buy that 60 years ago. Not today.
Posted by: rickb223 at October 12, 2023 04:20 PM (XWuoG)
As Tevye the Milkman said, “Tradition!”
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at October 12, 2023 04:21 PM (9ITg2)
Except party affiliation is a lot like tribalism. A lot of people vote for a party b/c their parents voted for that party and their parents voted for that party.
Posted by: I forgot my name b/c I haven’t posted in 6 months at October 12, 2023 04:24 PM (ky+MF)
That was exactly my point. The first Jewish immigrants to America voted for liberals, so their descendants have continued the tradition.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at October 12, 2023 04:26 PM (9ITg2)
I don’t think this is it. I think most Jews see themselves as an at-risk minority, vulnerable to oppression or even a progrom, and so they vote for the party that claims* to represent openness, chaos, diversity, corruption, and a weak social order.
It is not that they intentionally want to destroy the society, but they are reflexively against the things that make society cohesive and strong because they have seen too many times that such a society can be very dangerous to them.
Posted by: Gentlemen, this is junta manifest at October 12, 2023 04:32 PM (hagjt)
*The Democrats only “claim” the first of these characteristics (openness), but their policies inevitably produce the rest (although corruption is endemic to both the weak and the strong).
I’m not sure that kind of voting calculus can operate consciously, but it’s an interesting idea.
It is not clear, historically, that cohesive and strong societies necessarily produce pogroms. America (prior to the Recent Unpleasantness) is the greatest example that they don’t.
I think that weak, chaotic social orders are more likely to generate pogroms against some perceived threat from a particular segment of the population, but they also tend to generate autocratic governments that are a perverted mirror of genuinely strong and cohesive societies, which might be a surface correlation that suggests causation.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a lagging consequence took the fall for its predicate cause.
The real problem is what ideology is driving the cohesion.
Recent posts by Doc Zero, who is an essayist Kipling would appreciate.
(first tweet – xeet? — of each thread)
Oct 11 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
All conflict boils down to a contest of will. Terrorism is a force multiplier for the will of evil. The objective is to engineer a steady retreat from civilization by demanding concessions, frequently negotiated by intermediaries or a “political wing” of the organization. The terrorist’s first goal is to demoralize civilization through fear and doubt. The fear is visceral, while doubt is sown by forcing civilization to compromise its principles and redraw its own borders. The first concession is granting legitimacy to the terrorists.
Oct 11 • 23 tweets • 4 min read
Those masks dropping away from much of the American Left were not very convincing to begin with. Left-wing ideology always becomes a blood cult, because it relies so heavily on the fantasy of using force to compel obedience from victims who were “evil” to resist. The gulags were the point of communism, not a necessary utilitarian evil or tragic detour. Collectivist ideologies seek to romanticize the violent force they require to function. Revenge fantasies against class, race, religious, or ideological enemies are the easiest technique.
Oct 9 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Remember, Barack Obama and his staff of dumbass teenagers thought it would be a brilliant masterstroke to reverse decades of Middle East policy and align the U.S. toward Iran instead of the Sunni Gulf states. They congratulated themselves for thinking outside the box. Obama and his people are still in charge behind the scenes,
A lot of pixels are being spilled over the purpose behind the attack by Hamas, including this post, which wonders why they didn’t have a “step two” after their wildly “successful” murder spree.
“Today, Graeme Wood has a piece in the Atlantic trying to answer that. Like the rest of us, he has been looking at unfolding events trying to piece together the plan.”
Hours after Hamas broke through the Gaza barrier, I asked whether we were witnessing Step One of a plan that would perhaps involve Hezbollah and a front in the north—and even further moves that would threaten to break Israeli defenses altogether. Israel rapidly reinforced its northern border to prevent that, and according to reports, Hezbollah was warned that any shenanigans would be answered with the leveling of Damascus. Such phased escalations would have had their most devastating effect if they came when Israel was at its most confused and traumatized, and before it mobilized its reserves. Now that its reservists are in place, escalation seems unlikely to happen, at least not in the coordinated strategic way that could cause Israel’s collapse…
What is Israel to make of an enemy that launches an attack like this, and does not have an immediate Step Two? …
Step One was to infiltrate Israel and commit crimes against humanity. Step Two—well, it’s not clear what Step Two is, and even Step One is looking half-baked. Terrorists gonna terrorize.
Sexton accepts that Iran was “surprised” because “they may not have been involved in the planning or timing of it.”
For various reasons, which I need not repeat in this forum, the first is very unlikely (of course they planned & funded the attack), but the second (timing surprise) may be credible.
Looking at some of the details in J. E. Dyer’s post, it appears that the plan probably DID include actions similar to those Wood suggested, which never materialized at the time of the attack.
After day one of the attack I tweeted some links that indicate the Israeli defense establishment has been batting around the possibilities of a scenario like the current attack since at least 2018.
…
The April 2023 article from Israeli security analyst Mordechai Kedar lays out the scenario with useful brevity, and I’m providing a link to the Hebrew version, but also posting screen caps of the English auto-translation, which comes through very intelligibly.
These are merely a few excerpts, whose accuracy and relevance I think readers will appreciate. There is much more in the full article. A considerable portion of the rest deals with Iran’s expectations of other actors (besides Hamas and Hezbollah). A significant operational difference: Kedar’s informant outlined an attack in which Hezbollah invaded from the north first. That’s not what happened on 7 October, and in my view that’s better for Israel. Hamas moving first removes the element of surprise, and gives Israel the advantages of dealing with Hezbollah’s host nation-state across the northern border. Lebanon, even under Hezbollah’s current control, is more deterrable and accountable than Hamas in Gaza. It’s easier to bring in outside pressure on Lebanon.
Here is Kedar.
I can’t copy the screen caps, but the title is “A combined attack from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza and inside Israel: the “Doomsday” scenario.”
Doomsday is speaking mildly. Kedar attributes the details to a reputable source who claimed that the plans were already in process, and they did look very similar to what Hamas actually did (although apparently lacking the paragliders provided by the EU idiot/ally).
Dyer, along with the rest of the world, thought the Israeli intel failure regarding the attack itself was inexplicable, but doesn’t dwell on that aspect.
Reportedly, Iran “signed off” on this attack in August, a kind of event Israeli intel would be expected to have some knowledge of, even if it didn’t include all the precise details.
The timing of the Iranian coordination with Hamas in August 2023 was also curiously coincident with a seminar aired on Libyan TV of several Muslim clerics and scholars discussing, with an unusual focus and emphasis, the obligation of Muslims to “defend the sanctities of Islam” by taking specific actions, one of which was waging jihad in Palestine.
…
As an intelligence matter, the scenario hypothesis here is not itself an indicator. It’s a possibility, with solid thinking behind it. But it’s a basis for seeking a package of relevant indicators – clues, alertment factors – that we would expect to help focus the efforts of Israeli and other intel agencies.
The appearance, from outside the precincts of secret national intelligence, is that that didn’t happen. Israel seems to have been caught flat-footed.
Yet Iran’s prior consultations with Hamas were quickly reconstructed in open press within hours of the attack. Media haven’t just been taxing Israel with the apparent lapse. They’ve been seeking answers from U.S. intelligence, which should have had an equal shot at understanding the basic outlines of what was occurring.
The Biden administration is hewing to a non-credible line that it isn’t certain, even now, that Iran is involved in the ongoing attack. That’s nonsense.
Dyer continues with an analysis of what might be attempted by Iran & its proxies going forward (much of which Israel & the US short-circuited in the last two days), but does NOT address why the role of Hamas in the multi-player plan was the only one implemented.
IMO, either (a) Hamas did do everything them self, as they & Iran now claim now; or (b) somehow Hamas got the timing wrong and jumped the gun before the other actors were ready to go.
I think (b) is most likely, but what the cause of that mistake would be is a wide open question.
That it was a mistake is indisputable, given the response by Israel and the realization by so many people of the true nature of the Palestinians’ lust to destroy the Jews.
I do not rule out Divine Intervention in this unmasking.
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Just happened to see an interview on an Australian TV station with a Jewish journalist who had interviewed a top Hamas leader, and after interviewing this Hamas leader this journalist’s belief was that Hamas’ goal was to conquer and occupy all of Israel, and to kill all of the Jews.
Asked his opinion on the fate of the hostages, this journalist said that—in view of what he knew of Hamas—he did not believe that any of these hostages would survive.
Sad to say, I believe that he is likely correct in this very pessimistic evaluation of the hostage’s chances of survival.
I read an interview with one man whose daughter was missing at first. He expressed relief that she had been found dead, because if she had been kidnapped, she would have experienced unspeakable horrors.
(Of course, in the best of all possible outcomes, she would have been found alive.)
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/10/israeli-airstrikes-disable-main-syrian-airports-as-death-toll-from-hamas-terror-attack-surpasses-1300/
https://citizenfreepress.com/?wpdm=no
CFP put up two links to the same IsraeliPM X page under the headlines, 1) ” These are the photos Netanyahu showed to Anthony Blinken” and 2) “Warning: Photos are extremely graphic”.
Both lead to https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/1712471782303867144, which yields “Hmm . . . this page doesn’t exist. Try searching for something else.”
Too much “extremely graphic” for X: poof, it’s gone.
CFP amends his headline. It now reads “These are the photos Netanyahu showed to Anthony Blinken. Twitter restricts viewing, only registered users can see the photos.”
I have a post with links to several thoughtful articles/posts about the atrocity:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70123.html
weeks like this, I wish I had stayed on austronomy or even zoology,
LOf**kingL; I give you:
Blaxit.
My response to which is, how can I help this obviously worthwhile project along?
Biden is finally blocking the $6 billion from going to Iran. Perhaps somebody explained to Biden and Blinken that money is fungible, and futher explained what “fungible” means…
That story appears to be a nonsense Nonapod.
Well, it’s from the WaPo, which I’ll admit is pretty far from an unimpugnable source.
I think it is true. All kinds of terrorist enablers are having second thoughts now that Israel is flattening whole blocks. Qatar can smell the smoke on the wind.
I wonder if the Left in Israel is feeling even a tiny bit guilty with distracting the Israeli Government’s focus from the terrorists to their opponents on the home front.
My guess is they do not.
The Israeli Left considers Netanyahu to be THE REAL ENEMY.
And that HAMAS and the other terror groups to simply be Israel’s opponents.
None of that excuses the massive intelligence failure by Israel which, purportedly spends BILLIONS OF SHEKELS each year on keeping track of terror groups. It will be stomach churning reading to learn how terribly all those brilliant “intelligence analysts” – both Israeli and American – missed it.
Then, again, after 9/11 all the US did was crack down on sovereign American Citizens trying to fly from place to place,
All kinds of terrorist enablers are having second thoughts now that Israel is flattening whole blocks.
Chases Eagles:
Agreed. I think for Western enablers those second thoughts started with the horror and cruelty of the initial Hamas attacks. For instance BLM put up that disgusting “I stand with Palestine” statement then took it down.
I don’t believe this is just the latest in the “lather, rinse, repeat” cycle of attacks on Israel.
Things work until they don’t. Hamas has gone too far.
Unless this conflict sparks WW3 — a real, though I hope small, possibility — I think this works against Hamas and nets to a better world.
Did anyone catch Antony Blinken’s joint presser with Netanyahu? I was up early and caught it in entirety live. Pledged full and total support (unless the word parsers can break it down) for Israel. Pleasantly surprised by his speech but wondering if it will be tempered down or walked back,
The funny thing about Honest A. Blinken is that nothing that he says can be believed.
(The same is true for the entire administration in which he serves…but then “What is Truth?”, anyway…)
OTOH, maybe he IS speaking the truth…at least for the next little while—day? days? week? weeks?…
…even if one really ought to remember those golden words of wisdom: “…but the (political) science changes!”
(Golly…Sure WOULD be nice if Honest A. would mumble, even off-mic, something kinda like…”Garsh, ‘we’ should never’ve given the Palis and the Eye-ranians all those millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars….” Actually, WOULD be rather nice if Honest A. even mentioned the Eye-raninans at all…)
File under: Remember the 6 Billion.
JNS TV, Jonathan Tobin talks with Tony Badran on “US appeasement of Iran led to the mass saughter of Jews” (ongoing premier of show, now 37 mins in): https://youtu.be/cFM4o_hiEvA?si=DZWMV_-h6KhkshV8
I think they are scared. Israel may find a casus belli against Iran before this is over. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
@ sdferr – CFP links are too numerous to chase down all of them, but here are three that I thought worth mentioning, all regarding the fog-machines of war run by the Arabs and their American allies.
First: Hamas is back to their well-known playbook of faked photos and the associated lying.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/11/how-israel-hamas-war-disinformation-is-being-spread-online
Second, in the category of “how to report on a war from only one side,” note that NBC’s focus on the plight of the Gazans (which is genuinely horrible) neglects to give more than cursory mentions of what happened in Israel (which was apocalyptically horrendous), and that the Gazans voted for Hamas leadership and support their attacks.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-residents-airstrikes-death-danger-hamas-attack-rcna119448
“‘We’re not Hamas’: Gaza residents say airstrikes are putting civilians in grave danger.”
Third, the only proper response to the NYT’s continuing display that it never met a violent authoritarian dictatorship that it didn’t love (the Times story itself was a tie for the second category)..
https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/10/12/just-canceled-my-subscription-disgusting-readers-revolt-at-new-york-times-war-coverage/
That is actually “disgusted” readers, but they should have dropped the NYT’s propaganda rag a long time ago. However, better late than never to have your eyes opened (although many are clearly sufferers of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Syndrome and will probably continue to believe this is the only story the paper got wrong).
Continued:
“Painfully Hard And Painfully Easy Analysis”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/painfully-hard-and-painfully-easy-analysis
Key grafs:
‘Some analysis is painfully hard. Some analysis is easy, but looking at related facts is painful….
‘…Meanwhile, analysis of the geopolitical fallout from 10/7 is both painfully simple and painfully hard.
‘The simple part is that this war is going to get much worse, fast. Israel is now blockading Gaza of fuel, food, and water, and vowing to destroy every Hamas member globally. Last night saw a false alarm of Hezbollah opening a second front, sparking more chaos in northern Israel. False though it was, Israel is already exchanging fire with South Lebanon and with Syrian militias. When the ground war starts, imminently, so will regional escalation….
‘However, harder to analyze is the US claiming its intelligence now thinks Iran was “surprised” by the Hamas attack, rather than being the puppet master of it, even as the EU’s Von der Leyen was explicit in mentioning Iran in her public comments. Sadly, one has to note US intelligence agencies will say whatever is politically convenient in an election year where it helps the White House to be able to say there is no need to strike Iran even while backing Israel.[This last emphasis mine; ALL OTHER emphasis in original; Barry M.] What that means in terms of deterrent, or lack of it, remains to be seen.
‘Equally hard to parse is Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman phoning Iranian President Raisi for 45 minutes to pledge joint support for the Palestinians against Israel, mirroring what some other observers are seeing in social media posts across the Gulf….
‘So, another tense day of war looms ahead of an even tenser Friday. That analysis is easy. And painful.’
In re Blinken’s speech: if I were one of the Democrats’ foreign “partners” I would have a case of serious whiplash by now.
First Biden Inc. rolls out the red carpet for Putin in Ukraine, then jerks it out from under him.
Then they give Iran everything needed to finally obliterate Israel, but warn them not to use it.
Are they (a) playing some kind of long game that no one else fathoms, such that the fake-outs have some purpose; (b) monumentally inept, because they didn’t mean to give Russia and Iran any encouragement; (c) or backtracking on their original genuine invitations to mayhem, because of the backlash from Ukraine & Israel (inept not to have expected it, for sure; knaves can be fools as well).
I’ll take (c).
there are evil and stupid,
https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1712515452742586397
the clown show opens another ring
https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1712206804174659875
Via Instapundit, Commander Salamander’s modified three Course of Action, from mildest to most severe. “B” is what he now considers most likely, a Danzig-like de-population of Gaza. Pay them to leave, after killing actual Hamas. (My additional comment: There are no good reasons why a Gaza, fully Israeli, could not be as prosperous as Tel Aviv.)
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/gaza-coa-decision-brief
Why pay them? Didn’t Russia and Poland used the expelled population as forced labor first?
The piece by Isaac Saul that David Foster mentioned in his blog might be worth a look, not to imply that the other articles linked to weren’t.
I suspect Blinken has tunnel vision, and expected to win over Iran and Russia with concessions, but didn’t think through all the possible results. Biden’s “minor incursion” comment was telling. The US might have looked the other way to “minor incursions” in both Ukraine and Israel, but things got out of hand.
I think there might be a deeper agenda the Iranians may be following. Inciting Israel to make real war on the Palestinians could draw other Arab nations into the conflict. Reducing both the Israelis and the Arabs is a win-win for the Iranians. I know someone who lived in Iran as a child. His take on Iranians is that the Persians were a big deal when people were fighting with swords and they still think they are. I can see Israel sending air strikes against Iran, but not much else. There’s no love lost between the Iranians and the Arabs.
JFM:
No other Arab nation except those who are already Iranian puppets has a particle of interest in being drawn into this war.
It’s possible that decapitating the Iranian government may allow the Persians to take over.
BREAKING NEWS at just before 8PM Eastern:
Rep. Steve Scalise has decided to drop out of the House Speaker’s race, Axios reports.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-warns-palestinians-in-northern-gaza-to-evacuate-within-24-hours-un/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israeli-envoy-blasts-un-over-response-to-idf-warning-gazans-to-evacuate/
Hot Air pointed to a post at Ace (by one of his team) that addressed the WH denial of Iranian involvement:
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=406561
It elicited this comment:
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=406561#c38856884
That doesn’t appear to be a consequence that bothers our leaders very much.
On the perennial question of why American Jews support the Democrats who hate Israel, this comment at that same post started a good discussion.
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=406561#c38856763
*The Democrats only “claim” the first of these characteristics (openness), but their policies inevitably produce the rest (although corruption is endemic to both the weak and the strong).
I’m not sure that kind of voting calculus can operate consciously, but it’s an interesting idea.
It is not clear, historically, that cohesive and strong societies necessarily produce pogroms. America (prior to the Recent Unpleasantness) is the greatest example that they don’t.
I think that weak, chaotic social orders are more likely to generate pogroms against some perceived threat from a particular segment of the population, but they also tend to generate autocratic governments that are a perverted mirror of genuinely strong and cohesive societies, which might be a surface correlation that suggests causation.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a lagging consequence took the fall for its predicate cause.
The real problem is what ideology is driving the cohesion.
Recent posts by Doc Zero, who is an essayist Kipling would appreciate.
(first tweet – xeet? — of each thread)
https://threadreaderapp.com/user/Doc_0
Oct 11 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
All conflict boils down to a contest of will. Terrorism is a force multiplier for the will of evil. The objective is to engineer a steady retreat from civilization by demanding concessions, frequently negotiated by intermediaries or a “political wing” of the organization. The terrorist’s first goal is to demoralize civilization through fear and doubt. The fear is visceral, while doubt is sown by forcing civilization to compromise its principles and redraw its own borders. The first concession is granting legitimacy to the terrorists.
Oct 11 • 23 tweets • 4 min read
Those masks dropping away from much of the American Left were not very convincing to begin with. Left-wing ideology always becomes a blood cult, because it relies so heavily on the fantasy of using force to compel obedience from victims who were “evil” to resist. The gulags were the point of communism, not a necessary utilitarian evil or tragic detour. Collectivist ideologies seek to romanticize the violent force they require to function. Revenge fantasies against class, race, religious, or ideological enemies are the easiest technique.
Oct 9 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Remember, Barack Obama and his staff of dumbass teenagers thought it would be a brilliant masterstroke to reverse decades of Middle East policy and align the U.S. toward Iran instead of the Sunni Gulf states. They congratulated themselves for thinking outside the box. Obama and his people are still in charge behind the scenes,
A lot of pixels are being spilled over the purpose behind the attack by Hamas, including this post, which wonders why they didn’t have a “step two” after their wildly “successful” murder spree.
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/10/12/were-probably-overestimating-the-intelligence-of-hamas-n584315
“Today, Graeme Wood has a piece in the Atlantic trying to answer that. Like the rest of us, he has been looking at unfolding events trying to piece together the plan.”
Sexton accepts that Iran was “surprised” because “they may not have been involved in the planning or timing of it.”
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/10/11/us-intel-iranian-leaders-were-surprised-by-hamas-attack-n584172
For various reasons, which I need not repeat in this forum, the first is very unlikely (of course they planned & funded the attack), but the second (timing surprise) may be credible.
Looking at some of the details in J. E. Dyer’s post, it appears that the plan probably DID include actions similar to those Wood suggested, which never materialized at the time of the attack.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2023/10/10/winds-of-war-why-is-this-hamas-attack-different-from-all-other-attacks/
I can’t copy the screen caps, but the title is “A combined attack from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza and inside Israel: the “Doomsday” scenario.”
Doomsday is speaking mildly. Kedar attributes the details to a reputable source who claimed that the plans were already in process, and they did look very similar to what Hamas actually did (although apparently lacking the paragliders provided by the EU idiot/ally).
Dyer, along with the rest of the world, thought the Israeli intel failure regarding the attack itself was inexplicable, but doesn’t dwell on that aspect.
Dyer continues with an analysis of what might be attempted by Iran & its proxies going forward (much of which Israel & the US short-circuited in the last two days), but does NOT address why the role of Hamas in the multi-player plan was the only one implemented.
IMO, either (a) Hamas did do everything them self, as they & Iran now claim now; or (b) somehow Hamas got the timing wrong and jumped the gun before the other actors were ready to go.
I think (b) is most likely, but what the cause of that mistake would be is a wide open question.
That it was a mistake is indisputable, given the response by Israel and the realization by so many people of the true nature of the Palestinians’ lust to destroy the Jews.
I do not rule out Divine Intervention in this unmasking.