I reported earlier this week how Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) blasted South Africa for filing a case against Israel for genocide in Gaza when he spoke at a luncheon of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center.

He told South Africa that they should just "sit this one out" and focus on its own country. Some interpreted that also as calling out South Africa over its own problems with the alleged genocide of white farmers. //

But he had a lot more to say, ripping into the activists, and demanding to know why weren't they asking about the hostage and protesting Hamas' actions?

"They're blocking tunnels, they're blocking roads," Fetterman said. "Why? Why aren’t they protesting, ‘When will we get the hostages back home?’ Why aren’t they protesting Hamas? Why aren't they protesting systemic rape and torture of Israeli women and children?

"I don't get it." //

atrocities committed against Israel, Fetterman said Wednesday, "I have a 12-year-old daughter. If someone did that to my daughter, would you want me to sit down at a table and negotiate with them? Never. I would never ask for Israel to do that as well."

Taking his support for Israel further, Fetterman said the country has the right to fully take on Hamas and noted that every Hamas terrorist that is killed is "one more step" toward peace. //

Recognizing the "blowback" he has received from some members of his party for his support for Israel, Fetterman said, "Great. I welcome the smoke then."

This is a massive scandal that will unfortunately never be treated as such. American news agencies were paying these men to participate in terrorist acts against innocent people. In fact, as mentioned in the report, one of Reuters' "photos of the year" was the picture of an Israeli soldier being dragged out of a tank and lynched. The guy on that video bragging about participating in that act was paid for his photo of it.

As has been said many times, there are no journalists in Gaza. There are simply terrorist sympathizers who are allowed to cosplay as journalists.

While nearly everyone agrees that it was a colossal intelligence failure on the part of Israel and its allies that led to the slaughter on October 7, the ensuing war in Gaza, and other instability in the region, the little-known truth is that it was US military aid to Lebanon provided by Joe Biden's national security brain trust that effectively prevented Israeli intelligence from sniffing out the plan and preventing the attack.

To understand this, one has to look at our history with Lebanon since the Bush (43) administration. If you find yourself asking how the United States ended up funding the internal security apparatus that rolled up Israel's intelligence networks and blinded them to the coming storm, the answer is a lot like the character Mike Campbell in his novel "The Sun Also Rises" explaining how he became bankrupt: "Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” //

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a nasty little war. Even though Lebanon was a virtual Iranian satrapy under the de facto control of Hezbollah, the Diplomatic SmartSet® reasoned that we needed to try to retain some influence. As a result, we began a program of providing training and equipment to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and their Internal Security Forces (ISF). It wouldn't take a genius to figure out what would happen. Still, the logical and foreseeable consequences of training the ISF when Iran politically dominated the country were beyond the grasp of a Harvard Kennedy School grad.

The training and equipment paid immediate dividends to Hezbollah as the ISF began trading Israeli agents and sources to Hezbollah in return for survival. This is from an account of a 2009 Lebanese operation.

The chief of Lebanon’s domestic security forces had a warning for the Hezbollah commander: “You’ve been infiltrated.”

With that, Achraf Rifi, head of the U.S.-backed Internal Security Forces, handed over evidence showing that two trusted, mid-ranking Hezbollah commanders were working as informants for Israeli military intelligence, said a high-ranking Lebanese security official with knowledge of the April 2009 meeting. //

With the rise of ISIS and the effective dissolution of Syria, more money was directed to the LAF and ISF because they were viewed in Foggy Bottom as the glue that was holding Lebanon together. Money to supply the LAF and ISF with equipment and training continued under Obama and grew under Trump. By 2020, the US was spending $242 million annually in Lebanon, up from $213 million in Obama's last year in office.

The training and equipment were excellent because the ISF rolled up 15 Israeli espionage networks in their next round of arrests that took place in December 2021. //

The above report places the beginning of planning and training for the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians in the late summer of 2022. This was carried out while a US-trained, equipped, and funded Lebanese counterintelligence service provided operational security for the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran planning and training period. As if to underscore the abject failure of the "retain influence" and "glue that holds Lebanon together" crowd, no one in the ISF, which we had trained and equipped for over a decade and whose salaries we were paying, dropped a dime to US intelligence or diplomatic personnel.

None of this is to say that the Biden national security goat rope knew the attack was coming, but it is hard to see how the outcome differed from being an active participant. Had we not been overawed by our cleverness and let Lebanon descend into its natural state, which is chaos and violence, Hamas would not have had a secure area in which to plan and to train, and the coming attack would probably have been discovered and prevented. //

Author's Note: My primary resource for this story is "Eyeless in Gaza" https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/america-leaves-israel-eyeless-in-gaza

When Harry Truman told his cabinet in 1948 that he was going to recognize the new country of Israel (without yet knowing what its name would be), most of his closest collaborators and friends vehemently opposed such a move.

Truman always considered that he had made the right decision, and in many ways, his was an extremely lonely choice; not backed by a majority of his cabinet or by most members of his own political party. //

While it’s true that Harry Truman had a soft spot in his heart for the Jewish people because of his Baptist and Biblical upbringing, and while it’s true he had close Jewish friends, and while it’s also true that he was deeply moved by the suffering of the Jews at the hands of the Nazi’s, these were not the main reasons that he came to his momentous decision. Looking at the actual arguments advanced at the time by Clifford and others who defended Truman’s move, it’s evident that the reason Israel was recognized was that they wanted a liberal democratic nation to exist in an area of the world where such a phenomenon was woefully absent. Not much has changed in the past 75 years. //

One sees in Harry Truman’s step a clear sense of right and wrong, but at the same time, there was a fierce spirit of courage in this lonely but righteous decision.

Few of the facts seem to matter as international organizations and the press ignore documented evidence of al-Shifa Hospital’s military use. //

Israel is entitled to win this war, morally and legally. The horrible reality is that many combatants and innocent people have died, largely due to the nature of urban warfare combined with Hamas’ abuse of Palestinian civilians. //

In this current war, neither attacks on terror facilities masquerading as humanitarian facilities nor the number of casualties should detract from Israel’s lawful and just effort to liberate the region from this stain on humanity.

Trey Yingst
@TreyYingst
·
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Hamas and Islamic Jihad have reportedly rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal that would end the war.

The Palestinian factions are unwilling to consider a proposal that sees new leadership in Gaza.

The Israelis have been clear that Hamas will not control Gaza after the war.
9:16 AM · Dec 25, 2023

This plays into something I've mentioned before, which is that the "Palestinians" want to have it both ways. On the one hand, they pretend to be oppressed victims who just want a peaceful utopia, a claim that is often repeated by intellectuals within Western circles. On the other hand, they refuse to make the slightest concession, even in the face of utter defeat, that would ensure some level of peace. How many deals over the years have various Palestinian leaders rejected that would have produced a two-state solution? How many ceasefires have they broken for no other reason than to continue their delusional intifada?

Yet, most of the international community hand-waves all that away, pretending that it's Israel that is the biggest stumbling block to peace. It's not Israel that's running United Nations schools in Gaza teaching kids to be terrorists and to hate Jews. It's not Israel that's hijacking billions of dollars in aid to build useless terror tunnels while funneling the rest of that money to wealthy leaders in Qatar. Hamas is not a viable peace partner and never has been. If they don't step aside and allow new leadership, there can be no end to the hostilities.

How quickly would this have all ended had the international community stood up and demanded Hamas surrender following the October 7th attacks, with a threat to cut off aid if it didn't do so? How many lives would have been saved?

These weren't just crudely built tunnels dug with a few shovels. They included toilets, an elevator, a great hall, and command and control facilities. One off-shoot connected to the home of Ahmed Ghandour, who previously led Hamas forces in northern Gaza. Ghandour had already been killed in an airstrike by the time this raid occurred. Overall, the discovered complex spanned over a kilometer of distance. //

It is astonishing to see how much money and manpower was wasted so Hamas could dig these tunnel complexes.

“IDF soldiers made the chilling discovery in a medical clinic that also held dozens of mortars and hundreds of grenades.”

The distinction between operations base or caregiving institution is important because attacking a hospital, even during battle, is only acceptable in certain situations:

International law gives hospitals special protections during war. Hospitals can lose those protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Need more proof that they consciously defied basic human decency? IDF has it for you: Tuesday, they dropped footage of the captured chief of a Gaza hospital admitting that he's also a Hamas commander, that his hospital was used as an operational hub, and that it once housed a kidnapped Israeli soldier.

Critics are pointing out that he is a captive of the Israelis and is not in a position of strength and that his confession could have been coerced. Viewers can decide for themselves, but like the Hamas terrorist who casually admitted to killing little kids, he seems quite calm. He actually seems melancholy about all that's transpired. //

“They left us out in the open while they have gone into hiding,” he said. “The people are the ones who got screwed."

“They sacrificed us, unfortunately,” he said, appearing downcast.

I would have some sympathy for him if it weren't for the nagging question: who exactly did you think these people were? They seem to have no respect for human life or basic dignity, why would they care about your fate?

You signed up for their savagery, so it's hard to feel sorry for you when you belatedly realize they simply don't care.

There is a piece of video propaganda making its way around the news services and the internet. It features imagery of an all-female, Israeli Army tank crew. //

That crew of dedicated Israeli patriots deserves nothing but kudos. They have stepped up to defend their nation against an evil force of terrorists who murdered infants in the crib among other atrocities. My beef, is with Americans who want to use those achievements to promote the provably and long-proven, false proposition, that generally speaking, females perform just as well as males in close combat units–moreover that somehow this Israeli example justifies the continued feminization of the American military. That’s. Just. Not. True. //

Two (of many) things left out of the video would demonstrate why women are physically unsuited for the role of tank crewman. What occurs inside the tank during combat isn’t relatively speaking, the physically demanding part. It’s what occurs prior to and after the battle that beats your body to death and requires strength and stamina to perform.

One of these crew tasks, is the manual upload of the “basic load” of tank ammunition from the ammo carrier or ground pallet, into the turret of the tank. Tank main gun rounds, depending on the type, weigh between 40, and over 50 pounds each. The Israeli Merkava 4, carries 48 rounds of 120 mm main gun ammo. Each round must be manually uploaded and placed into the vehicle’s storage magazine. //

Another onerous task required to be performed by armored vehicle crewmen, is “breaking track.” This physically demanding operation takes place when one or more of the track shoes must be taken out and replaced by a new one…or when the tank, or other armored vehicle, “throws” a track and it must be manually put back in place.

Bahrain is the only regional country playing. This is significant because Egypt has a major role in CTF 153, and command of CTF 153 has rotated between US and Egyptian admirals. If this is a test of strength between the US and Iran (and China), the fact that Egypt and Saudi Arabia have bowed out shows which way the political winds are blowing.

The Chinese have six warships stationed in the Red Sea/Persian Gulf area of operations. They are not participating, and they are not aiding commercial traffic under attack. Draw your own conclusions. //

In my view, this is just another case of the Biden national security apparatus trying to give the impression of doing something while doing nothing. The obvious reason they are doing nothing is that Biden, Sullivan, etc., don't want to offend Iran. Instead of looking after our national interests (safe and rapid transit of sea lanes) and showing confidence and leadership, the Biden White House has elected to show weakness and uncertainty. Nothing good will come from this.

KENNEDY: If your neighbor, first of all, Israel has no obligation. Israel built 3,000 hot houses and gave them for greenhouses. That would have made Gaza completely food self-sufficient. Gave it to them and offered to rebuild the Port of Gaza to make it the Singapore of the West. Hamas said no, we don't want Jew money, we don't want Jew ideas.

And what do they do? The international aid agencies have given Hamas, have given Gaza, more than 10 times per capita than what we gave to all of Europe after the Marshall Plan. They've gotten $8,300 per capita, for every person in Gaza. We rebuilt Europe with $621 per capita, in Europe, and we rebuilt it. What did they do with that money? Instead of using it to make this, Gaza is this beautiful country, with white sand beaches, it should be a paradise. Hamas says we don't want that. They take virtually all that money, and they steal it so the top five guys, the top five leaders of Hamas are billionaires. //

It was not a "blockade" that hampered Gaza (and the Rafah Crossing with Egypt is not controlled by Israel). It was Hamas' choice to waste billions upon billions of dollars of international aid to enrich its leadership and wage war. As Kennedy goes on to explain, Hamas has broken every single peace agreement Israel has agreed to, including the one that was in force on October 6th. //

KENNEDY" If Mexico attacked us, and we built a fence, would you blame us for caging in Mexico? I don't know what it is, but everything in your mind says to blame Israel instead of blaming Hamas. //

It’s a dry heat
3 hours ago
The amazing part is that RFK was clearly telling ms. nobrains information she did not know. But that didn't slow her down one bit. Never did she utter, "Oh, I didn't know that." She steadfastly pursued a narrative in the face of facts she did not dispute that made her narrative false. She was an advocate, not a newsperson. This, of course, is nothing new; but it was so clearly on display here.

Israel's UN Envoy Ambassador, Gilad Erdan, told the United Nations General Assembly that "murdering Israelis" was more important to Hamas than preserving the Muslim holy sites and it was Israel that was defending the mosque.

He then posted a video which he said showed Hamas firing a missile toward the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque. //

Iron Dome just intercepted a rocket right over Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Israel is using Iron Dome to protect civilians and Holy sites including in Islam. Where is the condemnation against Hamas for targeting these sites? pic.twitter.com/0ZEOrAaUzG

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) December 15, 2023

According to multiple reports, Hamas leaders who have been living in luxury in five-star hotels in Qatar are reportedly on the run, fleeing Qatar,

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that several of the leaders fled their locations, "turning off their phones and not accepting calls, KAN's Arabic language channel reported citing sources in Doha on Tuesday evening."

KAN News also reported that Saleh al-Arouri, a senior member of Hamas, left his usual residence in Beirut for Turkey.

U.S. defense aid to Ukraine is not only bolstering the defense of a friendly nation but also creating jobs for American workers and revitalizing the defense manufacturing base that has been in a death spiral since 1992. According to an exhaustive meta-analysis of Ukraine defense spending in the Washington Post, well over 90 percent of the military-related aid provided to Ukraine is spent domestically. The spending has resulted in the opening of new production lines, increased operations at existing facilities, and thousands of direct and indirect jobs created. //

The end of the Soviet Union resulted in a bacchanalia of Department of Defense cuts. Not only were the military services offered up as Bill Clinton's "Peace Dividend," but a round of "cost savings" under the Base Realignment and Closure Program savaged facilities that had little peacetime use but would be critical in wartime. One of the major targets was government-owned, government-operated (GOGO) and government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) factories that built munitions and military hardware. Even those facilities that survived found themselves deprived of money for modernization and partially mothballed. The ammunition plants operate very much like they did during World War II. //

But this automated capability isn’t available for the nuances of mixing explosives or filling shells, Brig. Gen. Gavin Gardner, commander of Joint Munitions Command, told Defense News on a tour of the ammunition plant’s production line for the Mark 82, a 500-pound bomb used by the Air Force. Operators still manually mix explosives — like tritonal, which is 80% TNT and 20% aluminum powder — using steam heated kettles, then adding it to the weapon mostly by hand.

That last sentence needs to be read carefully. The number of people alive who know how to steam-sweat tritonal and pour it into shell casings is in the low double digits. The number of those who are not Social Security recipients is a fraction of the total. With few facilities and limited production lines, providing a career path that would encourage someone to train for that job is very difficult. //

Another underlying problem is that the machine tool component of the defense industrial base is so decrepit that when we went to expand production of 155mm shells, we found we did not have the machine tools to build equipment for new production lines. //

As we've seen from the Israel-Hamas War, it is impossible for any friendly nation to defend itself without our assistance. Just three weeks into the war, Israel was making emergency calls for ammunition and equipment. What the Ukraine War is showing us is that we cannot help Taiwan provide a credible defense against China. Worse, we don't have the capacity to provide the United States military with the ammunition or equipment they would need to prevail should we end up in a shooting war with China.

If there is one issue in world politics on which opinions are held most strongly while being least informed it is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Vast numbers of people, almost certainly a majority, believe these falsehoods:

1. The Palestinians had their country taken away from them by the Jews.

2. The Israelis expelled the Palestinians.

3. The Israelis illegally occupy territories that belong to the Palestinians.

4. The Israelis refuse to negotiate for peace with Palestinian leaders.

5. Israeli intransigence impeded a peace process that Palestinian leaders pursued in good faith.
   We summarily dismiss points 1 and 2: –

6. There never was, in all history, a State of Palestine.

7. There is no evidence that any Arabs were expelled from the State of Israel. There is evidence that in at least one city – Haifa – they were implored to stay. There is also evidence that the Mufti of Jerusalem and Arab leaders urged them to leave before five Arab armies invaded the newly-declared State of Israel, promising them a victory after which the refugees would return to their homes. And there is absolute certainty that hundreds of thousands of Jews were forcibly expelled – stripped of all they possessed – from the Arab states. //

https://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/2011/11/blaming-the-victim.html
The claim that the establishment of a Palestine state would end the dispute is also ridiculous. Such a state was on offer in 1948; Israel offered to give up more than 90 per cent of the West Bank for such a state in 2000; and an even more generous offer was subsequently made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The Palestinian response was in every case war and terror. Yet all this is ignored, and Netanyahu is blamed instead for the impasse. //

The burden of peace is not on Israel. They have made every effort that reasonable people would expect them to make, but the problem is that Israel is not dealing with reasonable people, not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in liberal enclaves in the United States, and certainly not in the United Nations. The refusals have been on the part of Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, Iran, and the other usual suspects.

• Paramedic Eli Beer gave a harrowing description of finding a baby in the oven
• Video of his emotional remarks spread on Twitter this weekend as war rages on
• Gaza professor Refaat Alareer called it 'Zionist propaganda' and asked: 'What's next? Hamas ate the Jews?' //

A lauded Palestinian professor sparked fury by tweeting a warped joke about claims Hamas terrorists baked an Israeli baby to death in an oven.

Gaza-based professor Refaat Alareer - who was once glorified by the New York Times - responded to a paramedic's testimony that they'd found an infant who'd been cooked to death by tweeting: 'With or without baking powder?.'

He was replying to another tweet from journalist Dovid Efune which said: 'A baby was found in an oven, baked to death by Hamas terrorists, leading Israeli first responder @EliBeerUh recounted to an @RJC gathering last night.

The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday that demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The U.S. was the lone dissenter, with 13 countries on the Security Council voting for the measure and the United Kingdom abstaining. France and Japan were among those voting in favor.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood told the council that the resolution was “divorced from reality”:

“We still cannot comprehend why the resolution’s authors declined to include language condemning Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack on Israel on October 7,” Wood said, explaining that other recommended provisions raised by the U.S. were ignored. //

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar
·
NEW

At the UN Security Council, US Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood:

“We do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire. This would only plant seeds for the next war. Because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace…to see a two-state solution.”

12:11 PM · Dec 8, 2023 //

The situation in Gaza is indeed tragic, and civilians are getting killed in the battle. But the U.N. Security Council and the myriad groups calling for a ceasefire keep leaving out one thing: Hamas could negotiate one in five minutes.

Let out the hostages, lay down your arms, and stop attacking Israel, and you won't get invaded by the IDF. The U.N. would gain more credibility if they brought up a resolution demanding that.

What is the suggestion here? If Israel bombs Hamas, they are bad. If they shoot them during a ground offensive, they are bad. Now, we are being told Israel can't even take prisoners lest it humiliate the poor terrorists. Do the math there. These spoiled Western intellectuals who constantly infantilize Hamas simply want Israel to tie its own hands behind its back and wait for the knife. That's what they are suggesting. //

To be clear, no "innocent civilians" have been identified in the photos. All of those detained were taken prisoner after they came out of the tunnels. Among them are supposedly some "journalists" and "academics" of the pro-Hamas variety. Whether they were direct fighters or not is irrelevant. No one gets to walk out of a terror tunnel from an evacuated area without being treated as a POW.

This is the idiocy Israel has to put up with. In any other war involving any other country, no one would claim the taking of prisoners is inhumane. Certainly, no one would cry about a "journalist" being detained if they walked out of one of Osama Bin Laden's tunnels. Common sense goes out the window when it comes to Israel, though. Antisemitism is a heck of a drug. //

Joseph K
9 hours ago
Someone should remind these idiots that under the laws of war; a combatant fighting without uniform or insignia can be executed on the spot.

While Hamas unquestionably broke the ceasefire it had with Israel by committing a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, there was another reason for the recent renewal of hostilities. Namely, Hamas was refusing to release the rest of the female hostages as per the agreement for the extensions given. 

Now, the U.S. State Department is revealing the reason why, and it's horrific.

Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
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BREAKING: State Dept Spokesman Matthew Miller says the reason Hamas didn’t want to release women and the reason this pause fell apart is because Hamas doesn’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them.

This comes one day after @RepJayapal said we need a “balanced approach” when discussing the sexual violence and r@pe against Jewish women and girls on Oct 7 and while in captivity.

#MeTooUnlessUrAJew
Video source: @greg_price11
2:04 PM · Dec 4, 2023

Barak Ravid @BarakRavid
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BREAKING: State Department spokesman Mathew Miller says it seems that the reason Hamas refused to release all the women who it held hostage was because the terror group didn't want them to tell what they went through while in captivity in Gaza
1:10 PM · Dec 4, 2023