On Israel and the Palestinians: the diplomat, the admiral, and the reporters
Here’s the type of person all too numerous in our own State Department. I’m not referring to Parry the admiral. I mean the other guy, the one who speaks first, Sir Richard Dalton:
Sir Richard Dalton, knighted in 2005:
Richard Dalton was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He joined HM Diplomatic Service in 1970, went to study Arabic at MECAS in the Lebanon and was posted as Second Secretary to Amman in 1973. His next posting was as Second Secretary, later First Secretary, to UKMIS New York in 1975, and he returned to the FCO four years later. …
From 1993 to 1997, Dalton was Consul-General in Jerusalem effectively becoming Ambassador to the Palestinian Authority during the early years of the Middle East peace process. He was appointed Head of Personnel in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1998, and was sent as Britain’s Ambassador to Libya in 1999, when diplomatic relations were resumed after a 17-year break. Between 2003 and 2006, Dalton was ambassador to Iran.
Somewhere along the line something happened to him, or maybe he started out that way. I knew someone when I was in law school who later became a diplomat, and he was already an arrogant and condescending leftist with a tendency to “go native.” I also did some socializing years ago with a group of retired diplomats and I would describe them the same way.
At any rate, Dalton was complaining back in 2014 about the undue influence of the Israel lobby:
One of the frustrations is that my colleagues and I are not pro-Palestinian, pro-Arab, pro-Israel, pro-anything. We want what is best for Britain. But there is a pro-Israel lobby and it’s active in trying to define the debate in order to limit the options that British politicians can choose to options that would be acceptable to that lobby.
I don’t see anyone stopping Sir Dalton from opining ad nauseam, so that “pro-Israel lobby” must have lost the power to “define the debate.” If you go to YouTube and look at the comments to that video, almost all of them express astonishment at his statements, for example:
Can someone please explain to me how refusing to supply the enemy, who is actively aggressing against you, with your own resources for their people, can be considered a “war crime”?
No one seemed willing to answer.
Or this:
A war crime?!?! What about what the Palestinian terrorist group did to Israel??!! If your tenant kills your family, will you keep providing them cable?! Geez get real buddy!
Hoping a determined sadistically aggressive enemy can be discouraged from attacking by you taking a morally superior pacifistic stance is so naive that it would be more honest to call it what it is – stupid.
Britain would have lost WWII, if they’d been forced to live by anything like the rules he feels that Israel must adhere to.
Admiral Parry’s remarks, on the other hand, are quite sensible in that video. If I were sitting there listening to Dalton, I would not be able to maintain such calm.
Here’s an example of the way some newspeople are covering this:
Other reporters have a different approach:
Says the journalist of matters of which he has no knowledge whatsoever. Lucky he! as one in position to just make the story up as he plods his propagandistic way forward.
All you have to know about Hamas and the Palestinians is that the Southern border of Gaza to Egypt is closed and the Egyptian army is moving in to keep the border closed. The Egyptians kicked Hamas out several years ago because of its violence.
It will be interesting to see if the Egyptians can close off the tunnels that cross their border with Gaza.
As for Dr. Parry, I watched him this morning and thought what a pompous, self righteous, self important fool. There’s no moral equivalence between men committing war crimes and soldiers defending their country.
The plan is that afterwards, when the dust settles, Hamas terrorists will be gone for a good long time.
Yes, the Rafah crossing into Egypt has been tightly controlled or closed for a long time. When I was in Egypt, Gazans knocked down the fence and streamed into Egypt. The US State Department took a week to send out a warning to Americans in Egypt not to go up there, something I knew from reading news online. Big help.
Who isn’t fond of the story of George Schultz ushering US Ambassadors into his office on the 7th floor and gesturing to a world map on the wall asking each to “point to your country?”, then correcting them, after they’ve identified the country to which they’re ticketed, with, “No. Your country is the United States”.
Counterpart to kaplans arabist called the camel corps
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-its-completing-preparations-to-attack-gaza-from-air-sea-and-land/
Paul in Boston:
Who is Dr. Parry? Do you mean Sir Richard Dalton? Parry is the rather sensible-sounding admiral in the video and not a doctor. Dalton is the pompous ass.
Blinken is prepping the RobMalleyBattlefield for the time a week or so from now when the US Dept of State will gravely demand the Israelis must cease their offensive on “humanitarian” grounds. Meanwhile . . .
We’ve been informed in Congressional testimony that the IRGC stands in a two week nuclear weapon breakout posture.
And how many days have passed since the Hamas massacre of Israelis took place? Oh? Seven days you say? Anyone know how to do maths?
Like charles freeman or ray cave (who founded the vips(
Reciprocal Altruism is the only way to deal with adeversaries.
Sir Richard Dhimini.
I noticed that Parry twice referred to “a terrible resolve”. Just before this happened I’d been reading of the lead up to Pearl Harbor. That is the standard version of what Yamamoto said; he feared he’d wakened a sleeping giant, and filled us with a terrible resolve. (It’s pretty well known that Yamamoto thought it a mistake, but had to do as best he could. That was the view of most senior naval officers, but not the younger ones, or of course, the Japanese army, according to Arthur Marder.)
I did think I heard the hostess address Adm Parry as “Dr”. Nowadays it’s pretty common for officers to get PhDs. I’m sure Milley has one, though whether it’s in Caractacus’s uniform or Babylonic cuniform, I don’t know.
Neo: Whoops, you’re right. I used the name on the left in the photo by accident.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto%27s_sleeping_giant_quote
sdfer:
Lots of traffic in that area – including the Hamas-induced traffic jams.
Cell activity on those roads too, but some vehicles running dark…
I watch the Palestinians who choose not to head south to avoid the imminent Israeli offensive and those that participated in the gleeful celebrations a week ago and have to wonder. Yes, of course Hamas is actively preventing regular Palestinians from evacuating.
But most perhaps have bought into the Hamasian BS and believe the Israeli warnings are propaganda. And because of this many will die.
And I take it as a warning: beware your own government’s BS wherever you live.
Not saying; just saying.
On Hamas-induced traffic jams/roadblocks Banned, it’s a pity the IAF doesn’t have a precision “goo”-bomb with which to entrap the Hamasfiends manning the checkpoints, something I’m imagining (cartoonlike) as non-explosive but enveloping and debilitating which 1) wouldn’t frighten the people waiting in line in their cars to pass, 2) would make risible the Hamasfiends so entrapped, and 3) would permit the cars to simply drive on past maneuvering around the gooblobs of gooed-goons. But alas, no sucha animal!
yes yamamoto was the navy minister in the control cabinet, he had studied at harvard, been naval attache, so he had some notion of the strength the us could muster, a chinese or iranian equivalent would come to different conclusion
The book I have been reading lately was Arthur Marder’s Old Friends, New Enemies, which is about the RN and IJN in the period leading to war. But of course, as a lifelong naval buff, I’ve known the Yamamoto quotes since the 60s.
As usual, The Bee cuts straight to the heart of the matter.
https://babylonbee.com/news/hamas-disappointed-leftists-dont-believe-they-massacred-jews-after-they-went-to-all-the-trouble-to-livestream-it
Clarity from Daniel Greenfield.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20038/win-a-war
“To Win a War, Fight One”
October 11, 2023
Clarity on a parallel topic by Turley (“War is a continuation of politics by other means” – Clausewitz).
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/10/12/the-politics-of-chaos-disorder-in-the-house-did-not-cause-a-terror-attack-in-israel/
Richard Samuelson attempts an explanation.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/10/14/why_the_woke_support_hamas_149903.html
Here’s a youtube video by Ryan McBeth breaking down a captured Hamas assault team’s Operation Order. It presents to us a level of detail not available in news reports, such as mission planners would require. Note that it was published in 2022, and is deemed “likely” an Iranian produced publication. (21 mins)
https://youtu.be/RvYwfl7dgTY?si=rTJamNG5cyG9KLI8
Ryan was being “neutral” by calling Hams “militants” or “fighters” and commented on the KIA Hamas officer’s pay stub and how he had a wife and son. Poor guy, died while trying to kill as many Israeli civilians. (sarc)
Other than that, a good assessment by Ryan.
I’ll post this in the Saturday Open Thread too.
Israel’s Defence Strategy & the IDF – Doctrine, Mobilisation, and Recent Lessons – Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xbkakrwmFo
Re: Clarity on a parallel topic by Turley (“War is a continuation of politics by other means” – Clausewitz).
There is a reputable school of thought that what Clausewitz really said (or meant) was: “War is a continuation of policy by other means.
It is a distinction with a big difference.
Clausewitz himself is not clear on this point. In this regard he is a typical German philosopher.
yes it’s not as bad as when reuters called bin laden, a well known Saudi dissident but close,
https://twitter.com/giladalper/status/1712822693727207895
Dalton is an incarnation of those British puke Blimps who argued against allowing the Jews of Europe to come to Palestine in the 1940s because it would have offended the sensibilities of the Arabs. The Brits need to put him on a travel poster so the world will understand them better. A truly hideous man.
I’m reading up on the history of Gaza-Israel attacks. Wiki has two useful articles which show that these attacks have been going on practically non-stop since 2005, though not at the current scale of conflict.
Gaza just won’t stop attacking Israel.
Why so much of the world thinks that Israel is obliged to sit still and take these attacks or be bound by “proportionate response” is a mystery to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
Plus, huxley, what the nature of a “proportionate response” to the sadistic murders of 1300 people might be. Would this mean Israelis would have a quota for women they could gang rape, and for the other horrors? Their opponents are monsters, so they can be, too? The “proportionate response” people are not doing much thinking.
Powerline’s John Hinderaker weighs in:
IT’S TIME TO CRUSH GAZA
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/10/its-time-to-crush-gaza.php
The other thing about diplomats…
There’s the saying, “To a man with a hammer everything looks like nail.”
To a diplomat, everything looks like an opportunity to put a diplomat in charge.
remember they played the same game in Afghanistan, every accidental airstrike was a crime, every suicide bomber was a cry for help or something,
take an example of the kadr kid that killed an american medic, christopher speer,
he got sent to gitmo, the usual suspects doted on him, trudeau welcomed him with open arms,