Israel

Open Thread

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Trump has ordered a new census…keeping in mind that the Constitution requires a decennial census but it doesn’t prohibit a census at other times. Only hurdle here, legally, is to get the funding for it…which might be within Presidential budget authority on already-appropriated money (the census bureau isn’t only funded every ten years – it works all the time). Trump’s demand is an accurate account (everyone agrees that the 2020 census was deliberately miscounted in order to keep House seats and Electoral Votes in Blue States) and that it not include illegals…which is going to get the lawsuit as the Constitution does say all persons.

But is a person illegally in country a person per the Constitution? That is, can you illegally enter our country and then have an effect on the governance of our nation? Providing representation based upon illegal immigrants does dilute the power of citizens and legal residents, after all…there are seats which should be representing the peoples of Texas and Florida which are now representing California due to the counting of illegals in the 2020 census. If there are 3 million illegals in California (this is probably a low ball guess) then that’s 4 House seats which belong elsewhere. And, of course, the census also helps determine the flow of federal aid funds…welfare, medicare/medicaid, education…the number of persons determines how much money a State gets…and illegals aren’t supposed to be getting these funds.

Anyways, this will be lots of fun! And continue to make Trump’s point while also locking the Democrats into the 20 in another 80/20 issue…because if you point blank ask the question, “should illegal immigrants have representation in Congress?”, its going to be an overwhelming “no”.

Anita Dunn is saying Biden remained sharp as a tack – so, she’s lying. Now, that was just in a press release…under oath might be different. Biden’s people are lashed to the mast on this – if one of them goes down, they all go down in a conspiracy indictment. Key to getting to the bottom of this is to catch one of them in a lie (not hard) and then leverage that to get them to turn State’s evidence.

Jennifer Newsom runs a “non-profit” which seems to have funneled money to her “for-profit”. From what I’ve read, the Newsom family may have profited to the tune of millions. It might all be perfectly legal – this is the way NGO’s work and why the Establishment was so massively opposed to cutting off USAID. It is very much a club – and you very much ain’t in it. But if you are connected – and do as you’re told – untold millions will be handed to you by various means. And what does Newsom do to “earn” this money? Runs a “gender equity” organization…aside from agitating for overall Leftwing causes, there is no metric to judge the organization by. In other words, we can’t say they aren’t doing their job – there is no product, other than a new car for the Newsom’s and increased Leftwing agitation. I’ve been saying it for years: defund the Left = the end of the Left. They aren’t popular. They never have been. They’ve just been heavily subsidized since the New Deal. Time to end that subsidy.

Looks like Bibi might have ordered the IDF into Gaza to finish off Hamas. I believe that Israel’s campaign had been strategically unsound from the start – they should have laid a regular siege and starved them into submission. But I’m not in charge of the IDF and the Israelis want to fight the war this way. Hope it works.

How Do We Get Evil People to Stop?

Mark Noonan15 Comments

This initially started as a very long post on X but I ended up deleting it shortly after posting because I wanted to think about it some more. You’ll understand why as you read: it is a difficult thing to write about and no human being – if they have any wisdom at all – wants to presume too much. I worked into Book X of the Mirrors series (coming out later this year but it might slip to early next year) a bit where Fred is asking for a direct answer to what is going on from someone he’s certain knows: she gives an equivocal answer but rather than getting angry, Fred quotes Job 38:4, Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. And Fred, like Job, is comforted by this answer to all true Mysteries, continuing on with part of 2 Corinthians 12:10, for when I am weak, then I am strong. It is important, always, to be humble. To not be too sure and to ultimately rely on God, who’s judgements are true and righteous altogether. That said, I think this is important to say.

I was reading a post from a Catholic priest – a good priest, let it be noted – who was upset over the story that IDF soldiers were deliberately targeting Gazans coming for food aid. I noted that the story is almost certainly a lie – that its primary source is the Gazan health ministry, a known purveyor of fabrications. In jumped a Hamas-nik to deflect away from that indisputable fact to chime in with claims that the IDF routinely commits war crimes. Went back and forth a little bit there until it was certain the man was entirely wooden headed and would never think for a moment. But the whole interaction got me thinking about the concepts of justice and mercy. What, in fact, does love require we do here?

War is, of course, a nasty business. All we can learn of Our Lord tells against going to war. How can we love our neighbor as ourselves if we war upon him? On the other hand, the greatest – St John the Baptist – when asked by soldiers what they must do to enter the Kingdom merely replied – in essence – that they should be good soldiers. He didn’t say desert the army. This is pretty crucial if you ask me. That being in the military and carrying out your duties is pleasing to God. This indicates to me that Fallen Man is not going to stop being Fallen – and, of course, he isn’t. He still needs, every day, a Savior. Once we enter the Kingdom that is different – but until we do, we are prey to all the troubles of the world and war is one of those troubles.

That being said, it all comes down to why and how a person fights if war occurs. Naturally, no Christian may deliberately start a war. We are always to seek a peaceful resolution of differences and only engage in fighting if attacked or if an attack is so obviously pending that prudence dictates we strike the first blow. The only defensible war is a war of defense. Once a war starts, we are to act like Christians. We are not to be needlessly cruel to the enemy. We are to apply the necessary force to bring the conflict to its swiftest resolution, but no more than that. Nothing gratuitous. And these requirements are not just required of Christians – nobody wants as a result of war their own people to be massacred and despoiled. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu what have you, nobody wants that to happen to their side. And as they know they don’t want it to happen to them, so they know they must not do it to others. All human beings are morally obligated to be as decent as possible at all times, even the most difficult. So, in essence, there should be no war as nobody should attack unjustly and there should be no war crimes because everyone who engages in warfare should be as merciful as possible.

But what do we do in the face of the unjust attack? And, furthermore, what do we do in the face of an unjust attack accompanied by monstrous cruelty?

Naturally when attacked unjustly we are permitted to fight back in self defense. And the response must be proportional to the needs. In other words, if peace may be obtained by ten bombs then you shouldn’t drop ten thousand. But now we need to think a little bit. To consider just what we’re dealing with – and what response is proportional to it.

World War One morphed from a fracas in the Balkans into a World War for one reason and one reason, alone: the Germans unjustly attacked Luxembourg, Belgium and France. There was no reason for this German attack. Not the slightest justification can be made for it. The Germans did it because they thought they would win quickly and gain total mastery of Europe in six weeks. And the Germans, when they did it, knew they were doing wrong – because they wouldn’t want another power to invade Germany out of the blue in a bid for European mastery. They would have considered such an attack upon themselves as an outrage against all decency. And yet they went ahead and attacked France. They were in the wrong, totally.

By immense exertions and loss of lives, this German attack was defeated. The German army was forced to withdraw and enter into an Armistice before the German army was totally destroyed in the field. Germany then had a peace treaty imposed upon her designed to prevent a recurrence of the just-defeated attack. Germany’s army was limited in size and her economy was burdened with reparations payments designed to not only repay the offended parties, but to cripple Germany’s economic ability to wage war. This was an entirely just peace treaty given what had happened.

But it turned out that it didn’t punish the Germans enough. It left them intact enough to very swiftly rebuild their military might and try again – which they did a mere twenty five years after the first try. And this time their attack was accompanied by the most monstrous cruelty ever done by the hand of Man. People murdered by the millions. Rapes all over German occupied Europe. Massive looting not just of food and tools, but the very artwork of the conquered peoples. Meanwhile, over on the other side of the world, Japan had launched a totally unjustified war in 1937 – attacking China quite ruthlessly with the Rape of Nanking being a horror that would have made Attila the Hun sick to his stomach…an orgy of rape, murder and looting. And then, later, Japan just continued this in all the lands they occupied as World War Two became global.

War and cruelty go together. After all, even under the most honorable of circumstances, you are still seeking to end the lives of the other side. Who can say what lies and threats got that enemy soldier into uniform? Yet the soldier must kill – swiftly and without remorse. And in the heat of combat – with fear and hatred rising – at times even the most honorable of soldiers can commit acts which, in the cold light of reason, can only be described as barbaric. Of course, when such acts occur decent military organizations do seek redress. If for no other reason than to ensure good order and discipline in the ranks. But, often, because it is just the right thing to do. We understand why our boys might go too far at times and we want to be merciful to the man who may have been pushed too far…but right is right and sometimes we have to punish our own. But what the Germans and Japanese did in World War Two went far beyond this.

It is one thing for a soldier, or a few soldiers, or even a whole company of soldiers to go off their heads. At the Siege of Badajoz in 1812, Wellington’s army had to carry out an exceptionally difficult assault against an alert and entrenched enemy and the fighting was quite ferocious with no quarter asked or given. Those men were brave and disciplined British soldiers…but the cost of the assault seems to have set those men off their heads…once they had won they disregarded their officers from Wellington on down and went on a rampage of looting, rape and murder in the town. It was totally unjustified. A horrific blot on the honor of the British army. It took days for Wellington and his officers to regain control and turn their mob back into an army. It was horrible but not ordered by the command, nor sanctioned by the government, nor justified in any way by any British patriot. What the Germans and Japanese did was different from this.

What was done at Nanking and Babi Yar was the considered policy of the respective governments. The soldiers were ordered to carry it out. And they carried it out. As time went on and the monstrous cruelties increased in scope whole support systems were put into place so that Germans and Japanese could kill ever more people…and with ever more attendant cruelty, including torture and looting. Japanese soldiers didn’t go berserk at Nanking. No more than German soldiers went berserk at Oradour-sur-Glane. They carried out orders. And orders they knew were wrong as they carried them out because not one German or Japanese soldier wanted those events to happen in their home towns to their own people. Basic human decency required them to refuse to obey…but they obeyed. It doesn’t, in the end, matter why. Cowardice or cruelty or any combination of human failings – they were still responsible adults who knew better. And the sheer scale of the atrocities of Germany and Japan required that the whole populations of each country become intimately involved in them. After all, the guy who drove the train full of Jews to Auschwitz couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what he carried…nor that he never carried people away from the place. He knew. And so did his wife and children. Did they approve? It doesn’t matter: they went along with it when they knew they shouldn’t have.

You can excuse it and try to explain it away but the bottom line is that death is preferable to participation in such crimes…even the death of you and all you love. It just isn’t worth it if life requires you to participate, even second hand, in massacres. You think about the endless number of German families who just quietly went along – and then the Ulma family of Poland which harbored eight Jews and, when caught, was massacred down to Mrs. Ulma’s unborn child. The Ulma’s knew the risks – and think of Mr. Ulma, dedicated to the safety and happiness of his family. He could easily have said, “I hate the Nazis and I want to help the Jews, but I have my wife and children to think of” and done nothing. But he truly thought of his wife and children – and did what had to be done. It is when things are worst that we are supposed to do our best. The Germans and Japanese, in the whole, did not do this (and all honor to the few in each country who did do the right thing).

Now on to the really difficult thing to consider and I pray to God I don’t get this wrong – I do not wish to lead myself or anyone else astray!

As the children of Poland, China, Philippines, France, Norway, Burma, Russia, Greece and so many other nations were martyred by German and Japanese cruelty, did not their cries for justice rise up to heaven? They spoke in a multitude of languages and they had often very different ideas about God, but all of them were human beings and all of them were caught in a welter of cruel slaughter they in no way deserved. Surely out of their mouths and hearts went up the cry: my God, save me!

Of course it did. And I can’t imagine God not listening. Not seeing their tears. And while God gives us the free will to do as we wish God is also just and merciful and His will is always accomplished. The fact that the Germans and Japanese were utterly defeated is an obvious example of God’s justice operating in the world. That people so depraved were not able to win is just and merciful. And how were they not able to win? By being subjected to such ferocious punishment that total destruction resulted.

Much is said these days about the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan. From right after the end of the war, it has been derided as a failure. The advocates of strategic bombing swore up and down that it, alone, would destroy the enemy and compel peace. Clearly, it did not and so it must have failed. This, I think, was based upon a faulty understanding of just what happened in the strategic bombing campaigns.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the Germans and Japanese were forced to expend enormous resources fighting against the bombings. Every plane, every soldier, every bullet and shell shot up into the sky at Allied bombers was that much less they had on the battlefield against Allied armies. Each bomb that dropped in some manner hampered both nations in the conduct of the war…even the fact that craters had to be filled in to get the roads open took time and manpower and so there was less power to apply on the battlefields. In short, without the bombings the fighting on the ground would have been far more intense, lengthy and bloody. Maybe so much so that the Germans and Japanese could have prevented the total defeat of their nations.

In addition to that, Allied bombing power was still growing in 1945. It was only in 1944 that the Allied air forces could really be certain that a bombing raid would seriously degrade the selected target. It was all a matter of getting sufficient planes, sufficiently skilled crews and learning the difficult task of hitting a relatively small target from a great height. By 1944 the Allied air forces were nailing this down – and the destruction went from bad to absolutely horrific. We’ve all seen the pictures of the ruined cities taken post-War but they don’t really capture what it was like – meaning for the Germans and Japanese on the ground. To be absolutely helpless as a thousand enemy planes leisurely pass overhead dropping tons of bombs was likely one of the worst sensation any human being has endured. Small wonder that very often downed Allied pilots in both Germany and Japan were lynched on the spot by outraged people. Had the Germans and Japanese been able to keep us away – prevent Allied invasions of their own territory – then the bombings would just have gotten worse. Even absent the atomic bomb! Just worse and worse and worse. By 1945 Allied planes were ranging at will over Germany and Japan and Allied factories were turning out planes, bombs and aircrews at an increasing pace…suppose, for instance, that the Battle of the Bulge pushed us back to Paris and that the Germans had defeated the Russians January, 1945 offensive in Poland…so much the worse for Germany as the number of bombs dropping would have simply increased – perhaps to the point where it was simply impossible for the Germans to live (seriously: by 1945 even ox carts were being strafed).

And here’s the interesting thing I want to say: is it at all possible that Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay were instruments of God’s justice? That with all the cries to heaven for justice, it was those two men – and their intrepid air crews – who delivered the redress? I don’t know. But I can suspect. And I can definitely say that given what the Germans and Japanese were doing – as peoples – the bombings weren’t unjust even if not an expression of God’s justice.

What can we say? For the Germans this was round two. They had started a totally unjust war in 1914 and were totally defeated…but didn’t accept their defeat and so tried again in 1939 and this time were unbelievably cruel. So, too, the Japanese all over Asia and the Pacific…just simply mean and cruel…killing, raping, looting…both people lording it over the conquered even in the smallest ways. Simple military defeat in the manner of 1918 didn’t work…and so there was absolute crushing defeat on every level in 1945. And that did work. Nobody fears that the Germans or Japanese will ever try it again. So, just maybe the result of 1945 was totally just? Could be. This doesn’t excuse anything the Allies did which was actually wrong (like the behavior of Russian soldiers regarding German women), but the basic operation was just – it burned out of the Japanese and German populations any desire to carry on with their imperial and racist ambitions. And then we have God’s mercy working even for the Germans and Japanese: because of this massive application of power against them, the war ended before they were all killed and everything was totally destroyed. They, too, cried out to God for an end to it…and their prayer was granted.

And now lets go forward to today – the aftermath of 10/7. First and foremost, nothing can justify 10/7. Suppose Israel is guilty of every crime charged to her, there is no way to justify what was done on 10/7. First off, it was an unjust attack – there was no attack happening or pending on the people of Gaza. That they didn’t like the political and economic situation they were in doesn’t constitute a justification for war. To justify war you must be attacked or an attack is so imminent that you must attack to thwart it. Nothing like that was going on in Gaza on 10/7.

And then what the Gazans did: they didn’t enter Israel for a stand-up fight with the IDF: they came to rape and murder. Their primary method of warfare was to attack the helpless and treat them with inhuman cruelty. Even if someone did that to your people, you are not justified in doing it to theirs. Once again, as you do not want it to happen to you so you must not do it to others. And, of course, Israel has never sent in IDF units to rape and murder the helpless. What the Gazans did was a monstrous crime – something which hadn’t happened since the Germans and Japanese were doing it in WWII. And when the rapist/murderers returned to Gaza – often dragging their victims (living and dead) in their wake – the overwhelming mass of the people of Gaza cheered.

Cheered.

They cheered rapists and murderers bringing home the victims of their crimes.

They knew precisely what those men had done and they were happy about it.

Now, did every last person in Gaza approve? Almost certainly not. But the number disapproving is very small. It took years to develop the rape/murder squads. To get people to think that it is good to do these things is not something you just whistle up in a weekend. You have to mentally condition people to do it and approve of it. The Germans were all “oh, Hitler went mad in 1943!”…as if it wasn’t insane to deny Jewish humanity with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Sure, a basic Gazan on the street might not have known ten years ago that it was specifically leading to 10/7, but that Gazan knew – knows and always has known – that propaganda denying the basic humanity of Jews is wrong. They know it because they would be aghast at propaganda which held that Muslims aren’t human. Bottom line, given what Hamas was doing in Gaza from the get-go, nobody could have the slightest illusion that very bad things were going to happen. The Gazans just hoped they’d only happen to Jews.

So, what is the best thing to do here? A ceasefire? You mean a pause until the next round? How is that good? What does that accomplish? Indeed, wouldn’t a ceasefire seem in the minds of the Gazans a victory? That they stood up to the IDF and forced them to quit? And what of the mindset of the Gazans – the mindset that approves the rape and murder of helpless people? Which, by the way, doesn’t just happen in Israel…you can see it happening all over Syria right now, as well as in Sudan and other places in the Muslim world where violence is becoming endemic. There is a mindset at work here – a belief system – which sustains such cruelty. Ceasefire with it? To what purpose? Negotiate a peace? What’s the half way point between rape and no rape? What’s the compromise position? A little murder?

Or is it time to emulate Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay? That is, apply such ferocious force on these people that they fully understand what they’ve done is wrong and they’ll never do it again.

Honestly, I am not certain. But I can’t see the use of going on like we have. As if, perhaps, we are the bad guys – that there is some justification for what the enemy is doing, or maybe we should feel guilty about Dresden and so we’d better hold back going forward. All I know is that the only bad thing here is a continuation – letting this go on and on and on. It is time to end this – and unless we want to end this via our surrender, we’re going to have to get very stern in action. And true justice might require us to act sternly. After all, what would we say of the cop who let a murderer go, only to have that man kill again? We’d be pretty furious – and justly so. If we go soft on Hamas and Hezbollah and the other fanatic groups of killers, then all we’re ultimately doing is ensuring that some poor innocent at a later date gets killed. And innocents on both sides, it should be noted; some poor kid in Gaza who is killed by a bomb or a stray bullet didn’t deserve to die…and I’d prevent that if I can.

To get back to the genesis of this post, suppose the story of IDF soldiers taking pot shots at Gazans lining up for food is true. Well, I have some bad news for you: the only way to ensure it doesn’t happen is the total defeat of the Gazan people. If you take the position that the way to stop it is to punish the IDF soldiers and impose a ceasefire, then all you’re doing is making sure other innocent people are killed later. And I mean its as definite as Euclidean geometry: you are definitely, consciously deciding that some poor sap will die next week, next month or next year…and you’re doing it because you just want people to think you’re the good guy, today. The problem isn’t the IDF soldier taking the shot – the problem is that the IDF soldier is there in response to the 10/7 massacre. Had 10/7 not happened then no need for Gazans to line up for aid and thus no possibility of an IDF soldier going off his head and taking a shot at the Gazans. Get to the crux of the matter, people. The problem is an anti-human ideology which holds that Jews aren’t people and may be raped and murdered at will.

If we want an end to this then what must end is the ideology which generates the actions. An ideology of peace and brotherhood is very unlikely to start a war. An ideology domination is highly likely to start a war. Hamas’ ideology – like similar ideologies – is one of domination. Rule. Masters and slaves. It has to go. If you can think of a way to talk them out of it, I’m all ears. But I believe that its going to be necessary to burn it out of them. To let them know they’re just plain and simple wrong. That God has not decreed they be Masters.

The Blood Libel

Mark Noonan

In olden days, this entry would have been in the “What Media Bias?” series but we all know about that – this isn’t just about the specific lie.

Rashida Tlaib posts on her X account the accusation that Israeli settlers – backed by the IDF – beat an American citizen to death in the West Bank. The American citizen being a man born in Florida but visiting family in the West Bank; with news accounts saying he was just there to have a good time (because people always visit war zones just for a lark). Then Tlaib issues the call for us to get on the stick and start punishing all Israel for this crime.

Tlaib is a known and egregious liar so you instantly take it with a grain of salt but you decide to check into it. The primary source for the stories is the Palestinian Health Ministry. These are the same people who claim that war in Gaza has claimed 55,000 Palestinian lives, over half of whom are children. So, you know: straight nonsense. So, in addition to knowing that Tlaib is a liar, we also know that the primary source of the story is from a liar.

What we do know for certain is that the man is dead because he was beaten. That’s about it. Everyone saying anything else beyond that is merely speculating when not outright lying. From what I can tell, there was some sort of confrontation with no confirmation of who started it. But, of course, Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank do not get along. The sort of Israelis willing to live in such a doubtful location are, face it, the most ardent of Zionists. And the Palestinians have been taught from childhood that Israelis are evil. Won’t take much to get a fight started – a shouted insult or even an insulting look might set things off and you’ve got a fight with people hurt or killed.

To be sure, just like all people around the world, there are Israeli jerks. That is, Israelis who are mean and stupid just like there are mean and stupid Americans, Brazilians and Gambians. And, of course, mean and stupid Palestinians. What I’m saying here is that, sure, it could have been an Israeli who started the fight. But I also note in one of the articles about the incident, the dead man – after being lauded as the kindest, warmest person who ever lived in the whole, wide world – is described by his family as a man who “[died] protecting his family’s land from settlers who were attempting to steal it”.

This is a bit of a jarring note. Now, perhaps his family is merely trying to give his death a heroic cast – Palestinian culture currently placing a high value on dying fighting the Jews – but to say he “died protecting his land from settlers” doesn’t indicate a guy who was merely visiting the West Bank for a good time. Like he went there with a purpose. Perhaps that purpose being to stir up violence which could then be used as Palestinian propaganda against Israel. This doesn’t mean the man wanted to be killed – or even should have been killed – but it does show that a deep investigation is warranted before we get all upset with Israel over it.

But that is not how things work in the modern world. Had a little discussion with a Jewish friend on X: he had brought up the fact that while people complain about Jewish bankers, the bottom line is that lots of Jews are bankers (and lawyers) in the West because for the longest time they weren’t allowed to be anything else. They couldn’t integrate. Specific laws prevented it – including bans on Jews owning land and so forth. To be sure, that isn’t the case today (pro tempore in Europe and Canada), but the Western Jewish culture just isn’t geared to get a Jewish guy going, “I think I’ll buy a farm in Kansas”. To be sure, there were Jewish people involved in all aspects of the growing USA (after all, Levi Strauss invented blue jeans), but America has always been a little odd as its always been easier to integrate into our life if you want to. But, still, even in America, lots of Jewish bankers and lawyers because, culturally, that’s what they were geared towards.

This brings us to try to understand what Zionism was and remains: it is an attempt to give the eternal alien a home. Technically, this could have been done anywhere in the world, of course. Could have carved out 8,500 square miles in the USA, Australia or lots of other places around the world and done the same thing as was done in Israel – given a land to Jews for Jews to live in and rule themselves. Israel was chosen because of the Jew’s historic connection to it and it was nearly empty at the time of the first Zionists who began arriving in Israel in the 1880’s (and there was, of course, a Jewish population already residing there at the time: as far as we can tell, since the time of Abraham there has always been some Jewish people in Israel).

And it really was pretty empty: according to the Ottoman census of 1849 – 99 years before Israel became independent – the population of Jerusalem was 5,800. To give you a good idea: in the Old City (which was pretty much the total city in 1849) there are currently more than 31,000 people. Modern Jerusalem has nearly a million people in it. So, 5,800 to start. Pretty small. And this was by far the biggest city in what is today Israel. Today between Israel, Gaza Strip and West Bank, about 15 million people live. This is more than have ever lived there (estimates are under Roman rule it was a few million, tops). Nobody really knows what the population was 200 years ago, but guesses are about 100,000, mixed between Jews, Muslims and Christians. Bottom line, almost everyone alive in that area today is descended from someone who arrived less than 200 years ago: they’re almost all Settlers. The point here is that when Jews started to immigrate in the 1880’s, they came to a nearly empty land which was bereft of civilization. Only Jerusalem was barely livable because it received a steady income from Christian pilgrims. Other than that, complete dump and wasteland. Minimal agricultural or other economic activity. Visitors were pretty much disgusted with how poor, ignorant and degraded the local population was. And that is why the Turkish authorities – and even the local authorities – welcomed the Zionists: they brought a chance for some economic growth.

Nobody else was going to do it. Not ever. The land lacks any significant natural resources. It isn’t strategically important (too far from the Suez canal to be either used to defend or attack it). If it wasn’t for Jews wanting to be Jewish there, it would still be an insignificant and grossly impoverished backwater of the world. The Turks were probably delighted that someone was willing to come down and spend some money there – anything to build up a bit of economic activity so that governing the area wasn’t just a drain on the Turkish treasury. And so the Jews came. And came. And came some more. Swamps were drained. Roads built. Schools and hospitals. Farming commenced. Now where there had been nothing of value, there was wealth…and the non-Jews looked at this and saw it was good…but also saw that the Jews kept coming. And coming, and coming and coming. Two and two were put together. Eventually, the Jews would be a majority.

Now, when faced with such a thing, you have two choices: just go along with it, or fight it. I do understand why “go along” wasn’t appealing. You’re a Muslim who is living in a Muslim majority land and even though you’re poor, you’re still of the Ruling Class. Muslims hold all official positions. Muslim law dominates. Your cultural and religious ideals are dominant. Here come Outsiders and they’re coming so fast that soon they will outnumber you and start to vote into place themselves. Most people would try to stop that, if they could. But it is important here to note how this fight was conducted: not a straightforward, “we’re Muslims and we’re just going to stay in charge, and if that means we have to kick out the Jews, then we’re going to do it”. Nope. It was The Jewish Conspiracy that is insidiously destroying us! Those Jews! Damned bankers! Cheating us out of what is ours! They didn’t buy the land and start farming, they stole it! Crafty sons of bitches! Kill them all! In other words, not a manly fight of people vs people for ownership, but a cowardly set of lies designed to instigate murder.

That is all this is really about: faced with a Jew sitting in the shade of a tree he planted on his own land, the opponent must cook up a reason for killing him for doing that. The tropes about Jewish Bankers and cabals and so forth is mere cover for “I just want to kill the Jews”. And that is what Tlaib is doing – keeping up the lie to justify murdering Jews. She, personally, might just be stupid – but whatever made her say that, the goal is specific: she wants Jews to be murdered. She and way too many tens of millions around the world: repeating the Blood Libel under varied forms all to get to the same result: murdered Jews…who are malevolent aliens everywhere.

And this goes for everyone who says things like “hey, I’m just asking questions”. No, you are not; you are participating in the Blood Libel. It doesn’t matter what happened in 1948. Or even last week. A Jewish guy pruning his rose bushes in his home didn’t do anything to anyone. But it is said that killing him is justified because of what other Jewish people are alleged to have done. Why? Because its all part of The Global Jewish Conspiracy! In other words, he has to die because liars want to lie. You can’t have an argument against Israel. It is there. It exists. Millions of people live there and have never lived anywhere else. They are not collectively responsible for everything that may or may not have happened in the past. You can’t call for “from the river to the sea” except as a call to murder the innocent…to murder people just because they are Jewish. Remember what Tlaib said in her post: it wasn’t “we must find the Israeli miscreant and punish him”. No. She said “our government continues to send billions to prop up the apartheid system that killed him and kills Palestinians like him every day. Arms Embargo Now.” The dead man wasn’t killed by an Israeli, but by The Jews.

And here’s where I get broken record: we have to punish lies. Tlaib is lying to get people killed. She’s hoping that some moron lunatic out there will take her words at face value and go out and kill a Jew. To Globalize the Intifada. Because in her mind The Jews are all one thing and purely evil. She won’t stop. Not ever. It doesn’t harm her to lie. In fact, she gets praise for it. She’s wealthy and powerful today because of lies. Until she is made poor and powerless by her lies, she’ll keep doing it. As will all the other liars. Just how many people have to die so that we don’t risk the financial and social position of anti-Semites? Just curious. Wondering if anyone can give me a number?

The Mullahs: They Still Have to Go

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Gotta tip the hat to the Israelis – that must have taken months to set up. They did it without anyone figuring it out and it clearly caught the Iranians totally by surprise.

There are Right voices being raised against Israel – rather stupid Right voices, but they are there. It isn’t just for the Left that some people think history started last week. Also, things like the Iran Hostage Crisis and the Marine Corps Barracks bombing are very much ancient history – the young don’t even know they happened. It is, perhaps, a little hard for me to realize that one of the central events of my formative years is ancient but so it is…in fact, as ancient to the youth of today as World War One was to me when I was their age. But at least I knew about World War One! The kids today don’t know much – and a healthy skepticism about foreign adventures is being twisted by malevolent actors into sheer stupidity.

There are good and bad nations in the world. Good and bad governments. For the most part, it is a matter of perfect indifference to an American what another nation is like – if they are bad, we can just stay away from them and that’s fine. But some nations aren’t just bad, they are malicious. Iran is one of the malicious nations. Their government, actually. It isn’t that they chant “Death to America” that is the problem…it is that they try to carry out the chant. That they are mostly incompetent at it is neither here nor there. It is that they try to strike my nation any way they can which matters. Essentially, since the fall of the USSR and the termination of Soviet funding for terrorism, Iran has been the prime mover in the terrorist world. They fund it. Train it. Supply it. Facilitate it at every turn. They take the money of the people of Iran – the part they don’t steal and hide away in Western banks – and use it to fund people who enjoy killing. You know, like the Hamas cretins who attacked Israel on October 7th. They live for the day when they might pull off something like that in the USA. I’ve been saying since 1979 that the Mullah regime in Tehran has to go – and everything that has happened since 1979 has simply confirmed this view as correct. But if you’re talking to a kid born in 2002 you won’t get through to them…they don’t remember it. They don’t even remember 9/11. All they see is the aftermath of our failed War on Terrorism and they were fed a story about how it all happened…The Jews and so forth made it happen and, hey, you know they lied about that Hitler fellow, too!

Good place to point out that Iran funds a lot of the Holocaust revisionism. Muslim nations have generally done this since WWII in an attempt to undercut Israel’s moral legitimacy…but the Mullahs put it all on steroids. Another reason they are malevolent. And what is malevolent has to go. The cancer has to be cut out…because if you don’t, it’ll eventually kill you.

To be fair, there are plenty of nations with governments that are evil – they rob their own people, oppress, kill, etc. But I have no concern about it because they aren’t trying to kill me. This is a key distinction, guys! The pragmatic facts of life are that peace cannot come to the Middle East until the Mullahs are removed from power. As long as they are in power, they will continue to stir the pot and fund terrorism in a program to seek maximum advantage in service of their sick and twisted goal of destroying Israel and the United States. It doesn’t matter that they never will have this power – it is that they will keep trying to achieve their goal. Get rid of them and there will be peace. Their dream is stupid but they won’t give it up – so it will have to be taken away from them.

What Israel is doing won’t do the job. Oh, there’s a slight chance that the temporary weakening of the regime will allow for popular revolt in Iran, but that is a very slight chance. The Mullahs make sure their security goons are well paid – and that means they’ll continue to obey orders to kill anyone who steps out of line. More than likely, the Mullahs will ride this out – and will remain the problem. Even if Israel destroys their nuclear program – literally sets it back to square one – it won’t solve the problem. Still good for Israel and the world, but not a resolution. A resolution only comes when the Mullahs are gone.

I’ve favored for years the most logical way to get the Mullahs out – as they remain in power because they can pay for goons, take away their money. Complete freeze on all assets, total blockade – land, sea and air. Nobody and nothing gets in or out. Within a few months the money is gone and shortages are spreading and though the Mullahs will lash out they can’t actually break the blockade…and hungry people facing off with unpaid goons is only going to go one way. Any military element here (other than the actual blockading forces) will be to degrade the means Iran has of striking out – mostly wiping out their small Navy and destroying their missile production facilities. It wouldn’t take much. It wouldn’t take long. It just takes the will to do it.

That will is lacking – even in Trump – because people simply do not understand the nature of the problem. You can’t reason with people who have no reason. We’ve seen it – try arguing with a Liberal. It is impossible. They will not address your points nor your objections but will just endlessly and quite mindlessly repeat their talking points. The Mullahs may or may not be truly insane – but they do know, sane or not, that if they give up the Death to America/Israel dream, then there’s no justification for their continued power. They know that at best a life of impoverished exile awaits them after that…and very likely death at the hands of their own people. There is no upside for them to act rationally – and so they won’t. And they will continue to rely on our unwillingness to see their insanity. See it. Understand it. And then get rid of them – whatever it costs its cheaper than another 50 years of dealing with these lunatics.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

One of the problems with the Third World is that infrastructure is deliberately destroyed when not merely allowed to decay. Copper theft from power lines and such is a massive problem. So, let’s see how the Third World is doing on that:

Oh, sorry, I’m being told this is not the Third World but Minneapolis, MN…

Import the Third World, get the Third World. The bottom line here is that the people stealing this didn’t build it – didn’t build anything that exists. They just were willy-nilly shipped in and they’ve brought their habits from home with them. Things exist in order for them to be stolen – and you don’t care if things don’t work because never in your whole life have things ever worked.

I’m kinda tired of being told that my nation – my people – are bad. That the settlers who built Minneapolis are inferior to the “migrants” who are now stealing the copper wire of Minneapolis. Only an idiot destroys infrastructure…but here it is, being destroyed. It is sort of like pictures I’ve seen of South African hospitals…filthy, garbage literally sitting on the floor. Everyone knows that a hospital isn’t supposed to be like that but its like that…because nobody gives a damn. They didn’t build it. It is just something to be stolen, and vandalized if it can’t be carted off.

No people are better than any other people. We are all human beings, children of God. But some people behave a heck of a lot better than others…and the problem of the Third World isn’t the legacy of colonialism or any other excuse being offered up. The problem is the people of the Third World who seem content to live badly. That’s fine. Their life. Their country. Do whatever you want to do. But I’m done with thinking we should continue to import these people – anyone coming in gets vetted and they should be 18 to 30, unmarried, no kids, fluent in English and have $10,000 in cash on them. That way I know they’re people who can reasonably integrate into my society rather than stealing copper wire.

There’s some TV show out there which decided to open up this season where a nun played by Rosie O’Donnell gets it on with another female character.

And the entertainment industry wonders why they’re losing audience. I mean, just in practical terms, if you want to have something vulgar, at least have the vulgarity portrayed by good looking people. Nobody wants to see a 60-something getting it on.

It is just insults, of course. Not even avant-garde. It is boring. To be truly transgressive these days you’d have to respectfully portray a nuclear family having a good life, or a man who works hard and plays by the rules. A distinctly feminine woman who likes and gets along with men. Heck, even just two gay guys who run a bait shop. Something like that. What entertainment does is insult us…not just our morals, but our intelligence. There is a place for the risque in entertainment…but if you’re doing to do it, it is supposed to be subtle and interesting…not a sledgehammer like using Rosie as a lesbian nun.

Thomas Massie seems determine to burn all bridges on the right – his latest effort being a demand we cut off military aid to Israel because “Nothing can justify the number of civilian casualties (tens of thousands of women and children) inflicted by Israel in Gaza in the last two years.” Just absurd.

First off, nobody knows how many people have died in Gaza. The only reports we get are from Hamas or Hamas-allied organizations and we know they lie with wild abandon. Secondly, if there were tens of thousands, there would be pictures of that. You can’t individually bury huge numbers of bodies – once you get past a few hundred, you have to get them into the ground – or burn them – quickly because of health risks. We would have video of mass graves and piles of corpses if even hundreds were being killed at a time, let alone tens of thousands. My bet is that once this is over, we’ll find that the total number of dead in Gaza is no more than a few thousands, almost all of which will be armed fighters with only incidental killings of civilians due to Hamas’ tactic of using civilians as human shields.

As I’ve said before, I think Israel has already lost this war – lost it within 90 days of the start. I could see how this would go: any length of time and public opinion would turn against Israel as the global Establishment geared up to make Israel’s response the problem rather than the Palestinians rapes and murders on 10/7. So it has happened – and I can’t see this ending without Hamas remaining in charge of Gaza. In other words, total Israeli defeat. Israel should have imposed a regular siege – after a legal declaration of war – and compelled the Gazans to surrender unconditionally. They would have. Sure, Hamas would have kept all the food for themselves and let the people starve…but eventually even in that system the food runs out and no human being can resist hunger pangs. After a while, almost everyone will do just about anything just to get a bite to eat. They would have stacked arms and come out with their hands above their heads.

But Israel did not go that route – for fear of offending global opinion, they decided to go slow and soft. Hasn’t worked, of course; the world already hated Israel. There was no upside for Israel to go soft. But softly they went…carefully and methodically targeting only confirmed armed opponents. They have had some major coups in this – the exploding pagers the most notable – but they haven’t had victory. But for our purposes here, the main thing is that Israel is not indiscriminately killing. It isn’t that bad in Gaza. Lot of stuff blown up, but not a lot of death…and nobody is starving or lacking medical care. For Massie to mindlessly repeat the Hamas lies about Israel is astonishing and disgusting. I don’t know what brain disease is affecting some people but it might be that some have just been waiting for their excuse to hate Jews…just as some wait for their excuse to hate Christians. Could be that when you alienate yourself from God, you feel compelled to hate Jews? Don’t know – but it seems that way.

Lies Kill Two…and Millions

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Vice President Vance posted this picture of the two kids who were murdered yesterday by a radical Leftist from Chicago:

I do hope this picture gets spread as far as possible. Really look at it. Study their faces. Burn it into your memory. Look at them!

They’re just kids. Starting out in life. They’re not even all-Jewish as I understand the young man, Yaron Lischinsky, was Christian. As Sarah Milgrim was Jewish, that shows the actual cultural diversity of Israel. People of different backgrounds coming together in love – for one another, for their families, for their nation.

They were killed for two reasons:

  1. The shooter knew they were Israeli and thus assumed both were Jews.
  2. Lies.

For decades now, but on overdrive since 10/7, the world has been flooded with lies about Israel. The shooter believes he was taking a stand against “the genocide in Gaza”. One problem with that, there is no such thing. In fact, recent reports indicate that since 10/7, the population of Gaza has actually increased. I’ve long stated my views on the matter: I do believe that Israel has lost the war in Gaza because they didn’t do what was necessary after 10/7: total siege. Nobody and nothing in or out. Endless artillery bombardment with aerial attacks on precise military targets. The Palestinians are to surrender unconditionally, come out with their hands in the air and then be exiled to some other place outside of missile range of Israel (I have suggested Socotra). The Israelis have not done this out of a foolish concern about global opinion (as if that matters or as if anything Israel does will meet with global approval) – they have gone extremely soft on the Gaza population. This has not only resulted in what amounts to Israeli defeat, but it has cost Israeli lives. But that was all Israel’s call – they are the people who determine their fate, not me. But the bottom line here is that there is no cause for any reasonable person to have the least complaint about Israel in the matter. Yet “stop the genocide” is a regular Leftwing statement all around the globe.

Last night, a radical Leftist who believes the lies acted upon them. After all, if you sincerely believe that Israel is engaged in genocide, you strike against them wherever you can. If you were suddenly sent back in time to 1940, what measures would you refuse to take in stopping Hitler’s regime? Perhaps you’d stop at cannibalism, but not much else – just about any action is justified if it is to stop genocide.

Yaron and Sarah are two of millions. Untold millions. Dead here and there and all around the world because we have been told – and most of us firmly believe – that if we don’t allow liars to lie then we won’t be able to speak the truth. There’s some demonic perversion if you ask me! I am told and I used to even believe that if I don’t allow some ignorant Leftist halfwit shout “stop the genocide” then I won’t be able to say there is no genocide.

No.

Just no.

It doesn’t work that way. If liars are allowed to lie then things will be done based on those lies. Like the man who murdered two completely innocent people last night. They are dead. They aren’t coming back. Everything they might have had in life is gone. Taken away by a man who will now be afforded legal counsel and a fair trial and might even see the outside of a jail cell before he dies. And who will likely become a folk hero among the radical Islamists and the global Left. Because of lies. Had we stopped the first liar in his tracks, then the millionth liar wouldn’t have got two kids killed last night.

Lies must be punished. Severely. If you’re worried about how you might end up punished for lying then I suggest you keep your trap shut unless you’re sure its true. It isn’t a big ask. Not lying, that is. Nobody has a right to lie and nobody ever fought a war to secure a right to lie.

We must make lies illegal.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

I think we’ve all noticed it – that Trump’s nominees are giving a full-throated endorsement of Trump policy. This is different from 2017 when it was pretty much “hey, approve me for this position and I’ll keep an eye on Trump for you!”. This now has the Democrats in quite a state of terror. They realize that what they’ve dished out for decades is about to be handed right back to them.

Our Democrats are now, as per usual, demanding bi-partisanship and that we make sure there isn’t any politicization of Justice. This is quite hilarious – that is, that they think we’d listen to them. We know what “bi-partisan” means: they get 90% of what they want, we get nothing. We also know what they mean by “politicization of Justice” means: for goodness sake, don’t do to us what we did to Trump! Of course, we don’t have to politicize Justice to go after Democrats…in what they did to Trump are a host of violations of federal law. This is why when Bondi said she would go wherever the law leads, Democrats got a sick feeling in their stomachs. All she has to do is follow the law and a lot of Democrats are going to jail.

Still, it remains to be seen: that is, if she’ll really follow the law. It is our hope, but nothing is for sure until it happens…and Trump is a deal maker: he might agree to turn a blind eye on this or that in order to get something he wants more. This would be ok as long as its something good for us. On the other hand, even if Trump would like to turn a blind eye, if Bondi gets the right people around her, it might not matter what deals Democrats want to strike…the hammer of Justice will drop on them.

The real problem the Democrats have is what Tallyrand said of the Bourbons after their restoration to the throne of France: they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Democrats are still voting against deporting illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes, and against banning men from women’s sports. Think about it: these are no brainer issues. Of course if you’re in country illegal and commit a sex crime you must be deported. Of course you can’t have boys competing with girls in sports. These are issues Americans are 70/30 in favor of. There is not a single vote to be garnered by opposing these measures…and plenty to be lost. But most Democrats are still committed to the flag they lost under in November.

The rule of thumb is that the party which won the White House will door poorly at the following midterms. The GOP should work from this assumption but there is an even money chance that it will go badly for the Democrats…and it’ll start leaning GOP if Trump has even moderate success over the next year. People carefully considered what the Democrats were offering and rejected it. The normal course of events for Democrats is to identify the issues they failed on and either jettison them, or at least modify them towards the political center. Nothing doing: the issues they failed on the worst are being held up as a litmus test for Democrats.

The ceasefire deal in Israel seems to me like a bad idea. I’m going to rely on Trump and Bibi to pull the fat out of the fire here but I can’t see an upside to allowing Hamas to live…let alone remain in charge of Gaza. It is clear, however, that the Israelis have lost some of the iron in the veins. The spirit of 1948 has atrophied. Time marches on. The Holocaust generation is nearly gone. A 25 year old Israeli has to ask great-grandpa about it, and great-grandpa is likely passed away by now. Sure, he learns about it in school and, by rote, honors the fallen…but he’s looking for a job and a girlfriend and there’s that weekend at the beach…suiting up to dig Hamas rats out of bunkers in Gaza lacks appeal. And lacks apparent immediate need: Israelis don’t feel like their backs are to the wall.

But their backs are to the wall. The Islamists take a very long view of this struggle. To them, survival after 10/7 is all the victory they need…they are now the he-men of the Islamist world who stood up to the Israelis and survived. Money and recruits will flow in. The world will rebuild Gaza for them. It might take ten years, but they will attack again. Sure, the Israelis will implement many new security protocols but human slackness always erodes these things over time…it is just the way things are. On 10/6 Hamas could easily get anything it wanted into Gaza – its why they had those thousands of rockets. The day after the ceasefire it’ll be almost impossible to get things in…but day by day it will get easier. Hamas’ goal is the total destruction of Israel and the murder of every single Jew on Earth. Unless and until Israel recognizes this and acts accordingly, there is always the possibility that Hamas can win.

UPDATE: Our Matt has an interesting look into the behind-the-scenes backstabbing that led to Biden’s withdrawal. Do read it: looks like they had knives out for a long time.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Rumor is that Team Biden is working with the Israeli Left to oust Netanyahu so a new, Leftist Israeli government can agree to a ceasefire which will save Hamas. For the Israeli Left, this is how to get back into office – and without the tedious need for an election that Likud might well win. For Biden, it gets Gaza off the table before the Convention so the Democrats don’t have to deal with Hamas rioters in Chicago. The primary thing here is the illustration that for the Left it is always about power – Team Biden and the Israeli Left don’t care about those who have died, nor about those who will die if Hamas is allowed to survive. They have no human feelings at all – just appetite for power (and wealth, sex and the things that go with power).

Will it work? Don’t know. Depends, in the end, how firm the Israeli people are and how much courage Netanyahu’s coalition has. We’ll see about that. But I will lay a lot of blame on Netanyahu: as I’ve been saying from Day One: celerity is crucial. Israel could never afford to drag this thing out. Unless the goal was to let Hamas survive after some severe punishment – and Netanyahu said it was about destroying Hamas – then the only way to do that was a maximum application of Israeli firepower on a tightly besieged Gaza. No supplies or people in or out; systemic, block by block destruction of every person and building in Gaza until the people of Gaza surrender unconditionally. And make no mistake about it: they would have surrendered. Probably after no more than a few weeks of that. Nobody was ever braver than the Poles in World War Two – but both in the initial invasion and during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the Poles eventually quit after being hammered quite mercilessly by the Germans. People can endure a lot. Courage can make up for a lot of things…but after a while all you’re doing is dying with no hope of success and it is time to call it quits.

The Great Debate: far too many rumors about why now – and why it is being set for June, prior to the Convention. The only things we know for certain is that Trump has accepted and Biden will be in a soft, cuddly cocoon of MSM when it happens. I think it is a high risk gamble by a Team Biden that knows its losing.

Russia launched a surprise offensive north of Kharkov – that is, a surprise to everyone but those who can read a map.

They keep saying the offensive north of Kharkov is a feint…but I gotta say it looks to me like the Russians are going for a pretty classic double-envelopment of Ukrainian forces east of the Kharkov-Donetsk line. We’ll get a better idea as time goes on. But the problem seems to be that the Ukrainians had very limited forces up north…and apparently have a severe manpower shortage in general. In other words, if this “feint” in the north is the real thing, the Russians might find they’re punching into an empty bag. The Ukrainian forces in the east would have to retreat, or be cut off and destroyed – and if Ukraine loses a significant portion of its army, that’s game-over…it would be abject surrender. This is probably the time for the Ukrainians to ask Putin his price for a peace treaty. If it mostly entails giving up what the Russians already have, take the deal. If it is a demand for Ukraine’s destruction, then fight on and probably with more help from the West.

Peru has apparently decreed that being non-binary and the rest of that drivel is a mental illness…mostly because it is.

As I’ve said all along: live your life! Let your freak flag fly if that is what gets you through the day. As in all things, I’ll diligently work to ensure that there is no unjust discrimination against anyone for what they are or what they do. But, a guy in a dress is still a guy. Nobody is born in the wrong body. There are no trans children. Gender is immutable and it is binary. I don’t care what you do – but don’t do it to kids and don’t demand that I participate, even a little bit, in your weird, little world.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

The Trump documents case has been put on hold indefinitely – from what I can understand, the judge is rather concerned about the whole premise of the case and will essentially engage in what amounts to a trial of the prosecutor. This is not a surprise – the case is ridiculous and any decent judge would see right through the scam.

On the other hand, today we saw in the hush money trial in New York the testimony of Stormy Daniels – a proved liar who’s whole monetary existence depends upon getting attention. Gee, no chance she’d be playing an angle here, right? Don’t get too upset about it – the case is also ridiculous but as its in New York, it will proceed to the jury, where conviction is 50/50. But the conviction will be thrown out – you can’t actually do what the judge is doing: that is, allow salacious, uncorroborated testimony designed only to provoke an emotional response from the jury. That Democrats are going ape over the delay in the documents trial is all we need to know about the New York trial: that dog won’t hunt. Convicting Trump in New York will just burnish Trump’s credentials as an outsider. Democrats know this. They wish they could just make it go away. It was all supposed to prevent Trump from getting the nomination. Now “backfire” doesn’t begin to cover it.

The Israelis are restarting their Gaza offensive. They are still taking way too long here. Absolute brutal use of force to finish this quickly is still what they need to do. The longer this drags out, the worse it gets for them. Naturally, the world is screaming bloody murder – the world wants Hamas to survive. They want it to survive because their Arab money bags have ordered them to secure Hamas’ survival. It is really no more than that – the kids out protesting in the colleges have no idea what is going on. They’re just doing what the organizers – who are not students – tell them to do. The whole thing is disgusting – but it all stems from an unwillingness on the part of the Israelis to drive the sword all the way in. I realize that Israel feels a need to stroke the American government – but there comes a time when you choose your nation over your benefactor.

Israel has time and time again had their Arab enemies on their knees, only to hold off from dealing the fatal blow. People forget that for all the early Arab success during the Yom Kippur War, less than three weeks after the Arabs started it, the Israelis were poised to force both the Egyptian and Syrian armies to surrender in the field. They could easily have taken Damascus and Cairo and dictated peace. We told them not to. They went along with it. They have to stop doing that. Kill them. Finish this. Dictate the terms of settlement.

Aside: Kirby was out there announcing that you can’t crush an idea with weapons. As if World War Two never happened. Guys: force works. In fact, it is ultimately the only thing that does work in human affairs. Being law-abiding is a learned habit. Sure, you can find saints. Lots of them, in fact, if you just poke around a bit, and sometimes in the oddest areas. But for most people, most of the time, what keeps them in line is the learned behavior of civilization. Learned so deeply that most people don’t even realize it isn’t something that comes naturally. And what taught the child to share wasn’t a reasoned argument; it was a rap on the knuckles. The adult doesn’t even remember being taught to share. To say “please”. It happened so young that our memories don’t stretch back to it. So, too, with societies – especially when they’ve gone terribly wrong. What burned the cancer of Nazism out of the Germans was 1,000 bombers unloading on their cities night after night. So it will have to be with the Palestinians. A lot of them will have to die so that the shell-shocked survivors understand that it was all a lie, and never fall for it again.

The Boy Scouts will now be Scouting America – for diversity. Bottom line: if you have a son, do not send him there. They will be groomed by perverts. The leadership of the scouts has absolutely no idea what the Boy Scouts are about – and after bankruptcy brought on by sex scandals, they are trying to DEI their way back into relevancy. What the Right has to do is create an entirely new organization – I favor calling it the Rangers, as that has a distinctly American ancestry going back to pre-Revolutionary times and brought forward into modern times by the Army Rangers in World War Two. I’m not particularly concerned with sex segregation; certainly not for members under 12. As long as proper segregation is maintained in the most crucial areas, there can be groups that have both boys and girls. But they can also be segregated. I’d allow local chapters to decide. The program would mostly be just scouting: that whole camping, hiking, doing good works in the community thing. Kids need that – kids today especially need something that will get them away from video screens. But I’d have it emphasize self reliance, hard work and honesty. They idea is to help parents craft their youngsters into sober, hard working citizens of the Republic. And I think it would experience rapid growth.

The Limits of Self Determination

Mark Noonan10 Comments

One of the principles of global affairs that is universally accepted is the right of peoples to self determination. That is, as far as possible, every identifiable nationality should be able to determine its own fate by its own means of arriving at national consensus. For the most part, this is the correct way to go because human beings have a right to their community and their community may express itself. Certainly, as we sit here in our United States, we do not wish to have any alien power dictate to us how we shall conduct our affairs. Any such effort would be considered by us to be an act of war and we would almost certainly fight against it. But even with that, I think that the expressed principle of self determination is incorrect.

To take a step back out of any modern controversy, back from the late 19th century until World War One, the Serbs were considered to be rather pests in the European body politic. They were primitive, nearly barbarous and were given to insane outbreaks of violence. Part of this, of course, was because they had for centuries been under Turkish rule and that rule was not conducive to the development of civilized behavior…but, still, the Serbs had agency and once they gained full independence from the Turks, they did a lot of really lousy things and well earned a reputation in Europe for being a problem to be dealt with. One of the more hideous things was the murder of King Alexander and his wife Draga during a coup; not just murdered, but mutilated. One of the major conspirators in that effort had a hand years later in setting up the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand which led to WWI. Nutshell: not nice people. But once World War One got rolling, Anglo-French propaganda turned these barbarians into the “plucky little Serbs” fighting the mean, old Austrians. Truth be told, the Serbs deserved all they got and more.

Given all that they had done, were the Serbs really people you want self-determining? If it was just that they were being lousy to each other, that wouldn’t be so bad, but they also touched off a world war. It is when you review the full story of the run up to WWI that you understand why the Great Powers of Europe tried to sustain Turkish rule over Serbia…the Turks were holding down people who very often needed a beating. So, there’s our fly in the ointment: we want people to rule themselves, but what do we do if they rule themselves so badly that it causes catastrophe?

Now lets jump over to today: we’re told that the Palestinians deserve their own State, totally free and independent. Leave aside that the Palestinian leadership says they want all of Israel and the massacre of all Jews. Lets just go with the concept that in Gaza and the West Bank the principle of self determination dictates an eventual fully independent State. It isn’t just Islamists saying this – it is some of the most reasonable, intelligent and educated people in the West. It is taken as a given that our end must be Palestinians governing themselves. And to be sure, in theory I think that all of us would want that – given that we want the same for ourselves.

But here’s the problem: Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Sure, the Islamists called it an “open air prison” with the Israeli border controls but that is just nonsense; and if it was a prison, it was enforced not just by Israel, but by Egypt, which has controls at least as strict as Israel’s (and probably more). However you want to slice it and no matter what complaints you wish to make about it, Gaza was free of Israeli occupation. The people of Gaza could choose their course. They were also the recipient of untold billions of dollars in aid from all around the world. They had the freedom and the money to choose.

They choose to build rockets and rape/murder squads.

Self determination suddenly looks a lot less cool, if you ask me.

How in heck is Israel supposed to live next to that? And a fully independent Gaza and West Bank just means even less ability for Israel to check those forces in favor of rockets and rape. The Israeli city of Sderot is 2,800 feet from Gaza. Do you want people who build rockets and rape/murder squads 2,800 feet from you? From your daughter? It is not something that any rational person can agree to – especially after 10/7. Maybe in the days when it was just a few rockets that Iron Dome could mostly stop and the every now and again stabbing attack…but when its 1,200 dead Jews including women who were raped to death, that makes it impossible to lived next to the people who did that. People who do that have to be watched; controlled; ruled.

Perhaps some day in the future the Palestinians can regain self government, but it would take at least a couple generations of instruction – basically un-teaching them hatred of the Jews. Until then, I can’t see any reason other than stupidity for wanting a Palestinian State. We can’t let adherence to a theory blind us to reality. However it happened, and whoever was at fault, the Palestinians have become essentially a national Einsatzgruppe bent on the murder of Jews. Until that is changed, they can’t decide for themselves.