“Sacrifice, the future has its price”

A question in many minds is what the hell did Hamas expect to accomplish with the  execution of al-Aqsa Flood? Why go far beyond a successful and shocking military raid to widespread commissions of atrocities upon innocents? Is Hamas no more than a band of sociopathic murderers maybe seeking their own pathway to paradise? Mental defectives? It’s too easy to dismiss them as mere defective creatures in need of eradication.

In spite of the pain, suffering and death that is about to be visited upon the Gazans, I think they did this for the future good of the Gazans and maybe all Palestinians. They are invoking the idea of sacrifice. This is not a foreign idea, especially to Christians. Our religious beliefs are centered on sacrifice. Christ endured the sacrifice of torture, crucifixion and death for our redemption. We celebrate that sacrifice in every mass.

Another act of sacrifice that comes to my mind is the self-immolation of Romas Kalanta in 1972. This 19 year old Lithuanian student lit himself on fire in broad daylight in a Kaunas park to protest Soviet rule. The KGB was shocked and did everything in their power to bury Kalanta and his self-sacrifice, but word spread. 1972 became a year of massive demonstrations and protests across Lithuania. That year saw thirteen other protest suicides. It sparked a call for freedom that was eventually realized in 1990. And it started with the shockingly bizarre and very un-Western act of a Kaunas hippie kid who just had to do something.

But there is a major difference between the sacrifice of Christ and Kalanta and the sacrifice about to be imposed on the men, women and children of Gaza. Christ and Kalanta sacrificed themselves for others. Hamas is forcing tens of thousands to endure sacrifice. Those tens of thousands are not choosing to be sacrificed. Why is Hamas steering events to bring about this mass sacrifice? Much of the world doesn’t give a damn about the fate of the Palestinians. Many Israelis care even less. They wish they just went away. The destruction of Hamas will not change that math. Self-sacrifice would be a useless and empty gesture. Perhaps the sacrifice of a large number of Gazans will change it. Yes it is heinous that Hamas is willing to bring about such a sacrifice of innocent Gazans by butchering innocent Israelis, but I can understand that drive to do something in the face of desperation and hopelessness. 

TTG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYwFcHURG3E

https://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/26393/

This entry was posted in History, Israel, Middle East, TTG. Bookmark the permalink.

122 Responses to “Sacrifice, the future has its price”

  1. Fred says:

    Self sacrice is too hard, so kill someone else instead? That’s not even a college bull session level argument. Hamas, whose leader is living in “poverty” in Qatar, could think of nothing better over the past decade and a half since being elected to lead? All Hamas has managed with their butchery is to guarantee retribution, and show the world the moral rot of the Left.

  2. James Nawrocki says:

    First, I have to say that I decry the killing/injury to all innocents. I try and look at events through the prism of history: it may not give us all the answers, but most times it does give us significant clues.
    I was not around in Laconia, Greece during the 5th Century B.C. (Helot Revolt), Capua, Italy in 73B.C. (Spartacus), Southampton County, VA in 1831 (Nat Turner), or Haiti (1804). But I have been to the West Bank. To me, what the world just witnessed in Gaza/Israel had all of the classic characteristics/behavior of a slave revolt. And like the participants in the other slave revolts, I doubt they were under any illusions of what the reaction would be to combat such a revolt .
    I think there is another goal of the Gaza uprising, heretofore not discussed.
    That is: the effect of this type of violence on immigration to Israel and the desirability of Israelis to want to remain in country.
    People are people all over the world. They all want family, friends, an occupation, a dependable means of support, and a secure place to live. Israel is a theocracy for all intents and purposes. It depends on Jewish people moving there, and the people who reside there to stay put. There is no doubt that this type of murder/mayhem within Israel proper has sent a collective shiver through the entire populace. Sure the ultra religious will always stay, but what about the entrepreneur, the computer wizz, or the young couple just looking for a safe place to raise a family? And then there are the current tensions in Israeli society that existed prior to October 2023, and are not going away.

    • TTG says:

      James Nawrocki,

      You get it and I agree with your observations about slave revolts. They are horrifically bloody affairs.

    • Eric Newhill says:

      Well, does Hamas represent the Palestinians or not? I see that the story changes depends on what disingenuous emotional story telling some people want to make. The Palestinians are responsible for what happened and what will happen? “Oh no! They are basically hostages of Hamas”. Is not consistent with “Hamas attacking Israel is like a slave revolt” as the latter implies that Hamas is acting quite understandably on behalf of the Palestinian people who are like slaves.

      Israel a theocracy, etc.? There are Arab, and even Palestinian, doctors and lawyers and elected politicians in Israel; not to mention a lot of Arab and Christian citizens. How many non-Muslims are allowed to do anything in Palestinian society?

      Lot of people working hard at creating an underserving underdog to love.

      • scott s. says:

        I have read a CT that Hamas was a creation of Israel as away to divide/conquer PLO, and Israel could then use that to manipulate Fatah, but Hamas “left the reservation”. Like any CT, idea how much credence to give it.

        • leith says:

          Scott –

          It’s true AFAIK. Or at least a large portion of Israelis (Jewish Israelis) believe it. Netanyahoo wanted to pit the Palestinians against each other. So he surreptitiously gave early on support to Hamas.

          • Stefan says:

            “So he surreptitiously gave early on support to Hamas.”

            Hamas, first as a charitable Islamist organisastion, then as a militant Islamist paramilitary, long pre dates Netanyahoo leadership in the government. As much as I dislike him, he had no role in Israel’s role in the growth of Hamas.

      • Stefan says:

        I think you forget Palestine has a Christian community. It used to be much larger, but Christians have always played an outsized role in Palestine. Edward Said and Hanan Ashrawi to name a couple.

        • Stefan says:

          Christinian Palestiniams have also been some of the most radical in the resistance. George Habbash anyome? Silencing snd marginalising Christian voices I think is one factor that played a role in early Israeli support for Hamas.

          • F&L says:

            Christian phalangists committed the Sabra / Shatilla massacre of roughly 3,200 Palestinians in those refugee camps as the Barbarian Israel IDF General Ariel Sharon (who set it up) guarded the scene with his Israeli goons. The casualty figures were lied about for years by the Ny times, WAPO, BBC etc etc. Mostly women & children and old folks.

          • leith says:

            Phalangists were fascists, wannabee NAZIs. Do they still wear their SA brownshirts? They were as much Christian as Franco, or Mussolini after he got reborn for political cover.

            Poor Lebanon was caught between a rock and a hardplace – Habash the Marxist and Gemayel the fascist.

  3. F&L says:

    Why? Can’t be answered because of your erroneous premises.

    First erroneous premise. “Christianity is a religion of sacrifice.”
    Absurd. It’s a war religion designed for soldiers of the Roman empire of it’s day.
    Who gives their life up for their fellow men? Soldiers who were killed in battle plugging the gaps, rescuing their comrades etc etc. And they absolutely know at some level even if little more than brutes themselves, that their work is ignoble in the extreme – it’s a dirty rotten business of cruel murder – for a corrupt and vastly wealthy emperor and ruling class who piss on peons, pillage the world and enslave captives if they don’t kill them outright and use them for sex slaves and torture display entertainments in their colosseums and arenas.

    Is there Any honor in that work – to them? Yes the bonds of comradeship are of necessity so strong that if a soldier dies not murdering for a Nero or a Tiberius or Caligula (which isn’t the least bit honorable at all) but for his fellow brothers in arms then he is truly an honorable person. And those bonds are sacred (in that context). And the word “sacred” itself has its origins in ancient words for “blood.” Little to nothing else is sacred for ancient imperial soldiers who rape women after killing their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers.

    That’s what “sacrificed his life for his fellow men” really means.
    So the concept was very appealing. And how did the mythical Christ who in reality never existed die? He was impaled by a spear. Who is impaled on spears? Soldiers fighting for Rome, that’s who. He was impaled after being tortured and scourged. Know anything about Roman military discipline? How many gruesome beatings they administered and persons they tortured? You think they didn’t understand the power of that myth. Who gets brutally disciplined and then sent into battle if he is lucky and sent to the awful front lines to die on the point of a spear? Do you need multiple choices – is fill in the blanks unfair?

    Christianity is complete bloody bullshit which came on the heels of even more thoroughly complete bloody bullshit – the genocidal Old Testament and its patriarchal murder deity Jehovah, the all time world championship holder of the titles for murder, cruelty, torture, rape, pillage and of course volumes of outrageous falsehoods and ridiculous lies.

    Second incorrect premise.
    Why did Hamas or the Palestinians make such an apparently hugely wasteful, destined to fail, and outrageously alienating to their cause display of barbaric cruelty which was guaranteed to be impossible to hide in today’s age of smartphones and instant world wide electric communication (you left out that part)? It makes no sense, why?

    Indeed. A far better question.

    Answer to your posed paradox: Because it simply did not happen in any way slightly resembling the was you premise. Go to the link below. I’ve pasted a translation directly beneath. Links therein are not preserved in the pasted text.

    Out of my respect for the truth I also paste simply this link wherein Elena Panina critiques the Israeli poly sci professor.
    https://t.me/EvPanina/11420
    You need to translate it yourself via the available Telegram tech or not.
    She mentions mercenaries who were imported for the outrageous cruelty stuff. I’m sure that’s true. There are lots of them left over from the horrors of the last two decades, including ISIS, the Taliban and western mercs who are as bad as they come too for the right price.
    ————————————-
    https://regnum.ru/news/3838907
    The Israeli political scientist said that the U.S. probably knew about Hamas’ plans

    The Israeli political scientist said that the U.S. probably knew about Hamas’ plans
    Political scientist Tsipis: U.S. intelligence probably knew about Hamas’ plans to attack Israel
    Moscow, October 12, 2023, 16:41 – IA Regnum. The conflict in Israel was unleashed as a pretext for the return of the United States to the Middle East. This was stated to an IA Regnum correspondent on October 12 by an employee of the Institute of National Security Studies of Tel Aviv University, Israeli political scientist Simon Tsipis.

    Earlier, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Maria Zakharova suggested that the American intelligence services could not but know that the Hamas movement was planning to attack Israel.

    “I am strengthened in the opinion that the war in Israel was unleashed only as a pretext for the return of the United States to the Middle East,” Tsipis admitted. – Now a squadron of aircraft carriers of the U.S. Fifth Fleet is being pulled to the shores of Israel. This means that the U.S. is returning its positions in the Middle East, as it was “exiled” from there after Russia introduced its contingent into Syria and prevented its President Bashar al-Assad from overthrowing it.
    In his opinion, now the U.S. will try to complete the overthrow of Assad by using the local conflict in Israel, as well as the fact that Russia cannot pay the same attention to Syria, as it participates in the Ukrainian conflict.

    In my opinion, this was the calculation of politicians and strategists in the Pentagon. They needed an excuse,” said Cipis. – Sadly admitted, but most likely there was something like a conspiracy. Probably, some members of our political elite got acquainted with this intelligence and kept it to themselves. Maybe there was a whole chain of conspiracies to reduce attention.”
    Tsipis believes that Hamas’ attack on Israel will be followed by the outbreak of a war between Israel and Lebanon, which will also be a participant in Syria, which will be hit. Most likely, an American landing party will land there, which will have to complete the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
    “I am sure that American and Israeli intelligence have had and still have resources in the Gaza Strip. And these intelligence services could not help but know that such an operation was being prepared. Moreover, it is known that 10 days before the start of this intervention, Egyptian intelligence gave Israel information about Hamas’ plans,” Tsipis drew attention.
    He believes that if the U.S. wanted to prevent Hamas from intervening, it would be able to do so. Maybe even a simple warning would be enough.
    Earlier, Regnum reported that, according to Zakharova, U.S. policy based on the theory of “managed chaos” led to the aggravation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She also believes that Hamas preparations could not be recorded from U.S. satellites. The latter, however, for some reason did not share the relevant information with their closest ally.
    However, the U.S. State Department hastened to assure that Washington will always support and protect Israel.
    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated the need to strengthen the U.S. presence in the Middle East so that the situation is not tried to take advantage of by states hostile to Israel.
    Meanwhile, information was received from Syria that the Israeli army began bombing the airports of Damascus and Aleppo. Both objects are now out of order.

    • jld says:

      @F&L

      Christianity is complete bloody bullshit which came on the heels of even more thoroughly complete bloody bullshit

      I concur but they are low grade amateurs compared to some.
      Yeah! THAT is “priests power”. 🙁
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Fire_ceremony

      • F&L says:

        Thomas Jefferson rewrote the new testament to a version more to his liking. So did Leo Tolstoy. In his letters to Benjamin Rush, a deacon of New England, he mentions how Christianity in it’s original form was a badly needed remedy to the barbaric ancient Jewish cult which was extremely bloody, far bloodier than the pagan Roman religion, but Christianity in his, Jefferson’s day was also in need of reform just as badly. You may have read Charles Dickens Tale of Two Cities, contemporaneous with Jefferson. In the first few pages a group of Catholic priests are mocked by three boys by sticking out their tongues at them. Their punishment, administered by the priests is to cut out their tongues.

        Jefferson refers to the 2nd temple in Jerusalem as an abatoir. So I looked up descriptions in my then extensive library. It was literally rivers of blood running down gunnels at all times with thousands of creatures brought in from the countryside. This is what the butchers now in Israel under Netanyahu’s grotesque party want to resurrect. Do you know what the true believers actually believe? Probably not unless you dug deeply into it, but you left Mensa because you wouldn’t tolerate looniness so I doubt it. Ready?

        They want to destroy Iran, the religious fundamentalist nutcases do, not because of anything to do with nuclear weapons. They need to “fulfill” the book of Esther, the holiest book in the whole Jewish canon according to them, and the final book of their canon too, like Revelation in the Christian one. In Esther, the prostitute Jewish concubine of the Shah of Persia, conspires to get Mordecai to bring about a complete genocide of the Persian – Iranian – people. Because they believe that the evil vizier of the Shah has plans to do in the Jews. And they suceed and kill everyone down the women and children. So the 3rd temple isn’t enough, the fable of the book of Esther has to be fulfilled. Guess what happens after that? All the laws are abrogated. That’s right, no ten commandments, pork can be eaten, little boys weenies don’t have to be mutilated, clams are allowed and the entire 613 actual commandments are bye bye.

        The Aztecs were world champs. A great compendium of gruesome ancient practices and bizarre superstitions is Frazier’s Golden Bough and New Golden Bough. The Aztec priests were monsters, there were others possibly even worse. So awful I won’t describe them.

    • Jovan P says:

      @F&L

      Here’s something for you to listen:

      Agni Parthene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-3h9TQ312c
      in Russian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7vvPXz-Qes
      Hymn of the Cherubim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnPoMvJm_cE

      • F&L says:

        Jovan P
        Well with a name like Jove I guess you would think negatively of my mockeries. Just kidding.

        I have Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Hymn of the Cherubim in my YouTube playlist for a long time now. I listened to it from time to time, frequently after the initial tragedies of the Ukraine Russia war provoked in 2014 by the British and the CIA hitman Barack Obama, the “progressive” man of “yes we can.”

        I keep the Hymn right next to Yulia Savicheva singing Max Fadeev’s Высока (Visoka – High, Superior, Elevated), which I consider just as sacred. You can read an English translation scrolling in smoke writing behind the beautiful Yulia. To me it can only represent a mother saying her farewell and blessings to her son or daughter. There can or should be no greater love.

        Юлия Савичева – Высока
        https://youtu.be/kxp0JY2VQeI

        Of course the other piece is beautiful. My love affair with music started with classical and has never stopped. The huge and magnificent pipe organs of our cathedrals were originally devices of the Roman emperors, who were pagan at the time. Instruments of state, to impress and awe. Their music must have been marvelous.

      • mcohen says:

        Thank you for the post.It opened my eyes to a question
        I see clearly now the events of the past 2 month
        From ruby black swans
        To the sacrifice” in southern israel as ttg calls it

        Answer on its way

    • TTG says:

      F&L,

      You know many things and are an interesting story teller, but you don’t seem to have a clue about Christianity and the early Christian church. Christians were persecuted by Rome until Constantine. Your descriptions do fit the Papacy for much of its history, though. But beyond the centuries of intrigue and corruption lies a faith characterized by striving to be men for others. Sacrifice is not an exclusively Roman Catholic thing, but it is central to Catholicism.

      As for your critique of a second premise, surprise attacks have been planned, prepared for and carried out for centuries without electronic communications and smartphones. That knowhow still exists. Thirty years ago, I was conducting HUMINT operations across international boundaries with no technical communications whatsoever. It is not a lost art.

      Both Panina and Tsipis see the world as carefully controlled by all knowing and all powerful cabals in DC, Moscow and maybe Teheran. Rubbish! The clueless, incompetent and impotent far outnumber the Illuminati-types in those self-proclaimed centers of world power.

      • F&L says:

        TTG: but you don’t seem to have a clue about Christianity and the early Christian church.

        Negative, I do. I should have gone into more detail though, you’re right. I was talking about it being a warrior or better, soldier’s religion of that era. The era I meant but didn’t specify was exactly the one you mention – when Constantine made it into try the state religion of the Roman empire. It was a garrisoned military empire then increasingly at war with so called barbarians. A state religion in that era would not make sense to such a state if it was obnoxious to it’s soldiery. Human religious sacrifice is ancient and predates Christianity by long periods of time. Kings and chieftains of yore were killed, you know, not elected and inheritance was rarely if ever smooth. Christ is the “king of kings.” The attempt to make into a universal religion a onetime murder of a great king has precedent in Osiris whose body was reassembled in myth and was reborn. That’s resurrection too. The reassembly is done out of profound guilt over the murder of royalty and fear of divine revenge by entities we don’t even remember. It had to appeal to Constantine not only because of its appeal to soldier’s sense of honor but precisely to a King like Constantine because look at what Rome had turned into. They had tried a representative republic of sorts but it didn’t work, they wanted it to because Rome remembered their early times of Kings starting with Romulus and it was an ongoing horror show, totally unrepresentative as their society evolved and the skills of the lower orders of craftsmen and workers were as important as the military prowess of chieftains, who not only killed each other in succession battles but actually killed each other of with in families brother against brother.

        The book of old testament kings is the bloodiest part of those texts. The first king of Israel is the giant Saul but the high priest and prophet Samuel dreads the change from the earlier tribal confederacy – he receives divine visions forewarned him of the catastrophic changes if he goes ahead. But the world is changing and he has to sanctify Saul. The prophecies are born out – Jews are enslaved by Jews, against the laws prescribed by Moses which they can’t remember because the thoughts of their founder and greatest prophet and lawmaker are suppressed in ways reminiscent of our plight today – the tablets and holy arc are missing in the same way that our laws are destroyed for the purposes of theft such as with Clinton revoking the banking and stock market rules of FDR which ended up destroying the world in 2007. It culminates in the evil King Ahab who battles the old time prophet Elijah who lives with ravens and is elevated into heaven for destroying the priests of the heathens worshipped by Ahab’s wicked harlot wife Jezebel. The Kings are horrible perverse tyrants – Salome dances and has sex publicly with the head of John the Baptist – for the delight of a damn tyrant King Herod. David, who of course is mythical, not one shred of evidence has been found despite huge effort – he’s almost an exception – the only real exception is good King Hezekiah who “discovers” the lost tablets and tabernacle of Moses,
        but that’s a bridge in Brooklyn for sale – he’s “good” because his reforms cater to the holy roller traditionalists, straight out of our right wing fundentalist goon squads today. “Saul slew his thousands, but David slew his tens of thousands.” These were guys bringing home the genitals of their slain foes as presents for their concubines and wives who competed with each other for who had the largest collection and largest items. It’s possibly why they practiced circumcision – less incentive to become war trophies but more likely a tribal way of saying we own you to your very roots as with Australian aboriginal initiation rites etc. David does bring Saul a truckload of foreskins though – but it’s myth. Solomon never existed either – how can the son of a nonexistent David have existed? But for what it’s worth he was one of the worst ever to the traditionalist nutjobs at least because he enslaved Israelites to build his massive fort systems. He’s a mythical Peter the Great or Stalin type. They do represent some individuals who lived possibly but the stories are made up because they need inspiration, heroes, you need traditions to some degree. They are for children in Sunday school who need inspiring examples of overcoming the gruesome odds that life will definitely throw at them.

        I’m getting distracted. My point was their republican system failed. It’s replaced by Kings again under Augustus as the first emperor after terrible civil wars – as anathema to the educated Roman governing class as is the Patriot act and our police surveillance state. The empire is bad news immediately – the corrupt and inbred patrician julio-claudian family leads it to bankruptcy by 66 AD. Disaster ensues, a time of troubles which inspires the Apocalypse of the Book of Revelation. There’s a good enough century that one, but it’s become a praetorian state – it already was under Tiberius, heir of Augustus in 37 AD. The military bureaucracy runs the government, directed by an Ok emperor at times but resulting in repeated assassinations in others.

        Does Constantine want that? No. Would it be better to have a King of Kings who was killed already and now has an entire established scholarly priesthood ready made to help administer your vast domains so you don’t have to keep doing so like the primitive warlord chieftain worlds. Yes. Christianity is a huge story, there’s a whole lot more. There were times when people had to eat their relatives and countrymen during and after famines and plagues and wars. The ritual of the eating the host and drinking the wine – body and blood of Christ – is probably a priestly technique of getting people to come to grips with overwhelming guilt but also, taboo to speak of, to satiate and dampen the dark undercurrents of cannibalistic appetites and urges that simply really exist, like it or not. People are told these days that hunger, sex, need for air and status etc are instincts or instinctual urges as are the urges to hunt and kill game. They are. Believe it or not there is an instinct to murder, yes, simply to kill other members of the species. An actual instinct to kill people plain and simple. It’s sort of a big secret but not to those in the know, not even close. Yes, killing is done out of greed and powerlust, and jealousy and envy and hatred and revenge. But the truth is a bit uglier. And when you walk into a beautiful church or cathedral and see up ahead above the altars a bigger than Lifesize realistic replica of a beautiful young man in the prime of his life, brutally murdered after prolonged torture – in a place of prayer, sure, and weddings, yes, and funeral ceremony, true, and consecration of Kings and princes and emperors and bloody tyrants – and someone tells you that he died because of our sins, that beautiful human being who told parables and healed the sick – my answer to “he died for our sins” (due to our sins, same thing – is: “actually you’re right. From the looks of it I can’t think of any other reason that he may have died, can you?”

        Christianity amongst many other things was an attempt by one of the most powerful kings in human history to bring an era of killing kings to an end. Of course it didn’t work. How could it?

        So TTG – you were right after all.

        • Stefan says:

          I suggest reading about the Arians, who were initially the majority in early Christian Europe. They different from others in their day and most modern Christians when it came to the trinity and divinity of Jesus. One university professor described the conflict between the Arians and what became the Catholic Church as an early civil war within the early European Christian world. The minority, fighting the Arians, came out on top. The various wars and conflicts ended up being almost genocidal in nature. Entire tribes were wiped out, ethno lingusitic groups disappeared from history. All based on one group of Christians slaughtering other groups of Christians on theological and political differences. Whatever people decide what they think the true message of Jesus was, the reality of Christianity has been one of mass murder and genocide. Men, women and children murdered in the millions in its name in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas. Same with Islam, Judaism, ect. All the theological debate really means nothing in the face of reality meant to the millions of ita victims. Some find solace in organised religion, but does that over come the millions of men, women and children slaughtered in its name over the span of human history? I was raised Protestant in an otherwise Catholic family. My father, an alternative boy and growing up in Catholic schools and abused in them for years, hated the Catholic Church, none the less converted back to the Catholic Church on his deathbed. As a young man I went through the RCIA process to become a Catholic. But in the decades since then I have really come to question the value of organised religion of any sort. I really think there is a case to be made that it has been a yoke on humanity rather than a positive. When you look at the worst sorts of humanity that are drawn to religious leaderahip, just isnt Catholic leadership. You want to find a den of vipers, twisted humanity and abusers, look to the religious leadership and clergy of any religion.

          • F&L says:

            No kidding. Priests were in fact the original butchers. Protein for the tribe had to be husbanded and only allowed on festival days or shortages and disaster ensued. Priesthood took care of the whole process and of course took the prime cuts and were the best nourished and healthiest, giving them additional advantages. They also didn’t have to grow the food or raise livestock. Catholicism was despised in 18th century America. It was almost illegal. The pope was quite literally considered the Antichrist – a term that was interpreted as Ante Christ – in place of Christ, not anti as in antimatter. Catholics were persecuted. One of the first things done in post revolutionary France was to close the churches. The first person to translate the bible into English was burned alive on the grounds of Oxford university in Catholic England. Wycliffe. All these so called modern religions are religions literally of the Barbarian ages of Europe, plain and simple, and are extensions of the gruesome earlier ones, they actually didn’t change. You can’t change it because you can’t change humans – humans are animals, creatures, mammals. And carnivores. They can’t change anymore than tigers and flies and mosquitoes and monkeys can. In deepest truth it isn’t the religions per se, it’s us, the humans who genocided the neanderthals and denisovians. We’re hyenas – clever ones with enhanced forebrains. Religions are a reflection of us. It’s origin is in ritual and ritual is thought to be a replacement for animal nesting procedures like birds gathering fluff and twigs first thing every morning or dogs patrolling their territory and marking it. If an animal can’t perform its nesting routines or rituals it simply freaks out and falls to pieces and eventually dies. Somewhere in the journey out of the trees and jungles we lost our nesting rituals and replaced them with superstition and weird chanting, singing, dancing and repetitious prayers and rites. It’s thought that a person in nature before civilization patrolled on foot an area every day of about 3 to 4 miles in each direction from home, camp or cave. The Amer-indians who are obese and alcoholic on reservations ate very limited diets and regularly ran miles every day. People actually hardly worked at all compared to moderns – 8 hours per week, not 12 hrs per day, with the exception of hunting expeditions which were episodic and strenuous but exciting and dangerous and killing was necessary as was fighting. We’ve moved way past our evolutionary niches without actually changing way Eskimos became Eskimos or bushmen bushmen.

        • English Outsider says:

          F&L. The search for something outside ourselves, call it religion, call it mysticism, call it ideology or use any term you like as long as you recognise it is ultimately the search for the Transcendent, is common to all. From the far out cultist who would be ashamed not to be an atheist to the stodgy Episcopalian who attends Church mostly because it’s a cultural holdover, to those who find something outside themselves, some sense of awe or of the non-ordinary, in music or in watching a game of football, none are immune to that impulse. We all engage in that search. I search therefore I am and if we do not search we are not.

          And it’s almost always communal. It has to be because there are no true solipsists. Even alone we are all part of one another. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name …” or when in the crowd at the match, the search is usually shared..

          Usually that impulse to search for the transcendent is tied in inextricably with cultural patterns, with moral norms. Usually there are teachers or even functionaries who reconcile ever shifting cultural patterns or moral norms with how we behave or feel we should behave in daily life. How we think even, sometimes. And others, prophets, who can reach further into that something outside ourselves than most. Those, to use a term now out of date for most, who find the way to God for us.

          All that’s one hell of a package. Of course the men of power seek to make use of that package for their own ends. To retain power they can do nothing but that: the priests or the clerisy can easily be used for that purpose and routinely are so used. But that use of religion or ideology as a means of reinforcing the status quo, or of establishing a revised status quo to the advantage of the men of power – that use does not invalidate the search itself.

          • F&L says:

            English Outsider.

            Transcend. Transcendence.

            I finally understand you, and confess that even I never suspected your long suffering in closets and pseudonyms, suffering for ages as a poor chronically abused outcast, thus your amusing attempt with “Outsider.” Now your affection for the American and European LGBTQ military comes plainly into few, as well as your misdirections of concern for the outcome of the battles in Ukraine.

            Trans end.

            EO – which anatomical region is indicated by the “end” of the human body? Take your time.

            It also applies to the “end” of the anatomical regions of transexual or “trans” human individuals.

            Do I need to go into explicit detail about the terminology:

            Trans End Dance?

            I hope not, it is a nauseating and revolting subject and the internet, on which we communicate, is used by children.

            Please please don’t think to harm yourself, please do not, English Outsider. You’ve found home. The Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transexual and Queer United States Military community. Of which, EO, I am not and never have been a member.

            Did you think you could outwit the collected spies and Special Forces eccentrics of the late US Army Colonel W Patrick Lang’s and … retired US Army Lt Colonel TTG’s turcopolier bulletin board?

            As you see, you cannot. Secrets are what spies discover.

            Don’t do it English Outsider. It will be a challenging few months ahead now that your secret is out. But there are compassionate and understanding people out there, and many other transexuals. Especially in the United States military.

    • Lars says:

      There is certainly a long list of erroneous premises here. But as the old adage says: If three people are to keep a secret, two of them need to be dead. If you want to speculate, there are several financial markets available, where you have to use real money and you will soon find out how good you are at speculating.

    • Christian J Chuba says:

      “I am strengthened in the opinion that the war in Israel was unleashed only as a pretext for the return of the United States to the Middle East”

      When did the U.S. leave the M.E? We have troops in both Iraq and Syria and not a whisper of removing them. We are keeping our boot heel on them. We control Iraq’s central bank and are helping the Kurds deprive Syria of their own oil. We also stepped up our naval presence in the Persian Gulf. Does someone think that we are going back into Afghanistan? If we do that then I’ll know we have lost our minds.

  4. Eric Newhill says:

    Hamas, IMO, is acting straight out of the Alinsky playbook. If Israel is restrained and doesn’t respond with overwhelming force, then Israel looks weak and that encourages more attacks, perhaps by more actors. If Israel responds with overwhelming force, then lots of Palestinian civilians die and Israel is condemned and maybe more Arab/Muslims countries join the attack on Israel. The Hamas attack’s purpose wasn’t the attack itself. Rather, the objective of the attack lies in Israel’s lose/lose response option set.

    Hamas is psychopathic death cult. The Palestinian people in Gaza are mere props to them. I don’t see where there’s much more to it than that.

    I still the whole thing reminds me very much of our country’s race baiters, Black Lives Matter, the oppression of systemic racism and all that rot. The poor Palestinians suffer within that mad political web just as our own Black population suffers within the American race hustlers’ web.

    Though, really, it’s all the compassionate people that buy the con who enable the psychopaths and harm the people.

  5. d74 says:

    I think all Arab Muslims suffer deep down from what is happening in Gaza, but probably not all their governments.

    About 70 years of violent dispossession and humiliation must have prompted some to say: “Enough is enough. Whatever happens, it won’t be worse.” As those who have been occupied by a foreign power know, hatred spreads from one generation to the next.
    The political (and human) fault of the West was to push into despair people with whom it would have been necessary to get along at least a little.
    70 years old, not around 18 years for Romas Kalanta…

    Three testimonials or anecdotes to support my opinion.
    1- In 1968, a French horseman reached Afghanistan from Turkey. A beautiful and slow journey. He talks with the people he meets from the countryside, all Muslims obviously. Even in the remotest countryside of Iran and Afghanistan, the fellah knew of the 1967 defeat and many cried for vengeance.

    2-Many French officers serving at UNIFIL (2 years), in contact with their Israeli counterparts, came back anti-Israeli. Too brutal.

    3-My family (but extinguished hate).

    I don’t believe that invoking religions is necessary, except to recall their radical incompatibility. For example, being killed fighting the infidel (us) is the guaranteed path to heaven.

    It would be inelegant to ask both parties to equally demonstrate intelligence and understanding. It is up to the strongest (top dog) to show his diplomatic, political and human skills to resolve the question of cohabitation in the long term. I believe there is an emergency. For example, the “Frankish” settlements in Palestine, resulting from the Crusades, did not last long after ties with the West were severed. A guideline exists: Hamas does not represent all the Gazans even less Palestinians. It is an unrecognized or very little recognized factual structure.

    Making all gazans suffer for Hamas’ crimes would close the door to a peaceful future.

    At the end of 1918, Marshal Foch was in his Luxembourg headquarters examining with his international staff how to deal with Germany and the Germans. He had this thought: “The Germans, we either exterminate them, or we get along with them. Exterminating them is impossible. So, gentlemen, let’s work out how to get along with them.”
    This is the way.

  6. Jovan P says:

    Some analytics say that if the USA evacuates their soldiers from the bases in Iraq, that means that, as TTG would say, the s. is about to hit the fan.

    I’m not sure that the USA diplomats and officials have the power to say no to Israel and I’m hope I’m wrong.

  7. Kim Sky says:

    Nice title: … the future has its price!

    PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION:
    The 2018–2019 Gaza border protests, also known as the Great March of Return, were a series of demonstrations held each Friday in the Gaza Strip near the Gaza-Israel border, beginning 30 March 2018. The idea was for Palestinians to go peacefully to the border fence to demand their right of return to the homes from which they had been displaced, these demonstrations continued for almost 18 months, most of the demonstrators demonstrated peacefully far from the border fence. A total of 223 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

    The, BDS Movement: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, now illegal in many counties, judged: anti-semitic.

    Not to mention the multitude of attrocities committed since then. Much less the poor little Olive Trees !!! Since 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinian olive trees have been destroyed, many of these trees are two to four thousand years old!

    I agree with TTG: I can understand that drive to do something in the face of desperation and hopelessness.

    A great interview: Antony Loewenstein. His most recent book: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World

    https://archives.kpfa.org/data/20231012-Thu1100.mp3

    He is interviewed many time a day right now, but, the link above is a longer interview, great stuff about Gaza, a more military type view, etc.

    • Fred says:

      Kim,

      How many olive trees did Hamas plant after they got elected in 2005? It’s been almost twenty years, ought to be a great deal of agricultural change in that time, right?

  8. walrus says:

    And another thing…….

    If the state of the Israeli armoured unit I watched on youtube apparently resting and refueling prior to entry into GAZA is representative, then G-d help the Israelis! This unti was not practicing the most basic operational security procedures. My RSM (Chalky) White would have exploded if he had seen this video.

    These guys and their Merkava tanks would all be dead if a ten man Hamas squad got near them,. These Israeli idiots had parked their tanks like a kindergarten carpark (actually mothers have more sense). There was no attempt at a Lager with tanks facing outwards, let alone any attempt at establishing fields of fire and exit routes, no sentries. They were languidly refuelling soft skinned vehicles and had a field kitchen running, utterly disorganised.

    Any infantry squad worth its salt would have grenades in most of the tanks and the crews dead before they could reach their vehicles.

    Normal procedure I have experienced is a “Lager” – all tanks facing out and at least three sentries, loaded with flechette. Soft skinned vehicles protected in the center. I may have been an amateur in my day, but none of us were as stupid as these clowns.

    • TTG says:

      walrus,

      It’s pure arrogance. The same arrogance that left all those settlements and the music festival with nothig that approached adequate protection. A week and more than a thousand dead have done nothing to dent that arrogance.

      • Fred says:

        TTG,

        I think Col. Lang pointed that out many years ago. All the IDF has done since getting their asses shot up crossing the “Tabbouleh Line”
        “The Israeli strategic problem is that they cannot prevent a salvo or salvos of thousands of these weapons into the northern half of Israel. They can’t break through on the ground quickly enough to do that and their air force will be faced with a lot of antiaircraft fire. This tends to degrade pilots’ ability to press home attacks against individual weapon systems.”

        I don’t think it has gotten better in the three years since he pointed that out.

        • James says:

          Fred,

          I have also been thinking that Hamas’ plan was to “do another 2006 on the IDF” – this time in Gaza, with Explosively Formed Projectiles.

          I think that they thought taking hostages would mean that the IDF could not bomb them and would have to go in, in APCs.

      • F&L says:

        “Israelis are the only people in the world who can strut sitting down.” Heard it years ago, don’t remember where. Tell someone he’s gods chose long and hard enough, don’t expect a good outcome. The Chinese males might have a similar problem due to the worship of the male child by their mothers whose lives are finally worth more than a dollar once they’ve produced a son, but I really don’t know their culture well enough. It’s thought to be the major cause of their insatiable gambling addictions though. If mama lived you that much and your sisters are slaving to pay off your gambling debts because you are number 1 son who can do no wrong, well you can’t lose and if you do what different does it make?

        • TonyL says:

          F&L,

          Like TTG said, you’re a good story teller. But that remark about the Chineses is just idiotic, at best. I’m not Chinese, but I know they are graduating more STEM graduates each year than we are in the US. You’re really just rambling on about things you know nothing about. Copy/paste from somewhere?

          • F&L says:

            They indeed graduate STEM. But it’s you who have no clue. How many Chinese students have you had, including dozens of gifted at mathematics? I’ve taught dozens. How many Chinese women have you dated and got to know their families? At least 2 here.

            I listened to a brilliant Chinese young woman weep explaining how she couldn’t go to college, which she was eminently qualified for because the had to slave two after school jobs and work weekends to pay off her spoiled brother’s gambling debts.

            Don’t be a smartass, TonyL. Be careful throwing around words like “idiotic.” Too often I can’t resist the urge either, here too. It doesn’t do anything but demonstrate frustration and rage.

  9. leith says:

    Sorry TTG. Too dark for me. Brings back bad vibes of the early 60’s when Buddhist Monks immolated themselves publicly in protest against the Diem family’s persecution of Buddhists. It worked in the short term as Diem and brother Nhu were assassinated in a spray of bullets and bayonet stabbings after they had surrendered during a coup. In the long run it was a disaster – in the 70s when Saigon fell to the NVA there was a mass arrest & imprisonment of Buddhists, seizure of their land & property, and state control of any remaining Buddhist organizations by the communists.

    • F&L says:

      Leith
      Wanna hear one of the most interesting theories about the crucifixion of Christ?
      Self immolation is an old practice of the Indian swamis and Buddhists going back centuries before Jesus’s reputed life. It’s a matter of record that such Eastern sorts visited the ancient Roman and Greek worlds and there are reports of self immolation in Greece, and the “holy land.” The theory is that Jesus knew of those things and it influenced his decision to die a sacrificial death.

      Years ago I read real accounts of religious mystics throughout the ages. Gershom Scholem wrote a good little book on it. It’s usual an instance of what we today call mental illness. Lots of people commit suicide for various reasons, some quite reasonable, some gruesomely sick. One of the primary theories about Christ is that he was a delusional schizophrenic who got so ill he may have become like one of the people on angel dust who think they can fly. He may have been so ill that he thought he talked to God and that God would either save him at the last minute or that he’d come back to life.

      He’s also a representation of the spring planting to autumn harvest agricultural cycle. John Barleycorn dies in the harvest to be reborn in spring with the other plants. Easter death and resurrection, winter birth. Stalin and Mao were both born around Christmas. True or myth for the peasants?

    • LeaNder says:

      There were quite a few Americans protesting the Vietnam War via self-immolation apparently, and before Kalantas in Kaunas there was Jan Palach in Prague. Or Siwiec in Poland, or Makukh in Kiev/Kyiv.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_self-immolations

  10. leith says:

    @d74 – “It is up to the strongest (top dog) to show his diplomatic, political and human skills to resolve the question of cohabitation in the long term.”

    Well said, hear! hear!

    • Eric Newhill says:

      And if the bottom dog simply refuses to go along with top dog’s proposals? And where is this “it’s up to top dog” come from anyhow? Seems suspect to me. Marxist thinking to be sure.

      It’s good to know that you bleeding heart, cult of the underdog guys would be just fine with any Armenian group that started terrorist attacks into Turkey – especially those involving murdering women and children – while demanding the right of return. Or for that matter, would be fine with Native American activist groups blowing up your house. These groups could do whatever they wanted, in your eyes, and it would be up to the Turkish and US governments to come up with a plan to appease them.

      What a collection of bizzaro thinking we have here.

      • leith says:

        Eric –

        Appeasement has not been fashionable since a Brit Conservative Party leader, Chamberlain, used it in 1938 to condemn Czechoslovakia to the nightmare of Nazi occupation. It was used even earlier in 1931 by an American conservative, Calvin Coolidge, who stood by when the Imperial Japanese Army raped and looted Manchuria.

        I’m against it. As we all should be.

        • Fred says:

          Leith,

          The United States should have gone to war with Japan over Manchuria?

          • leith says:

            Fred –

            I would have been against that. But how about shutting down US oil and steel exports that their military depended on; and that we eventually did six years later anyway. At least the implied threat of trade restrictions could have been tried.

            Or maybe reassemble another Great White Fleet like Teddy did in 09 and send it on a WestPac tour visiting ports in China, Japan, and through out East and SE Asia. A show of force.

            Perhaps those options would never have worked. But they would have been better than just standing by and saying naughty naughty diplomatically.

  11. mcohen says:

    Sacrifice?.you kidding right.More like an attack of a tethered goat.Serious blunder by the so called axis of resistance.

    Check this baby out.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/12/middleeast/massive-us-embassy-middle-east-mime-intl/index.html

    Smack bang in the middle of hezbollah terrority.

    What you should be asking is what and who is being sacrificed for the bigger chess game.
    Take Ukraine.All of the middle east’s bread comes from ukraine.
    Remember the Arab spring.Well this is the 2nd installment.

    • F&L says:

      Most valuable player award – mcohen.

      That completely slipped my mind. I saw it awhile ago. Dovetails with the Russian piece I posted about the Israeli political scientist about the whole shebang being a US provocation arranged to plausibly return the US to Syria now that Russia is neutered for sure. One of Putin’s biggest blunders – trying to save Assad, who is a complete …. Of ….. . An eye surgeon. Do you know what that means? A mass murderer and mass torturer billionaire who is a gd eye surgeon.

      Ever read the stories about Ivan the Terrible ripping out the eyes of a prince who surrendered to him? Almost certainly English or opposition propaganda but he did understand the value of fear.

      You deserve a cottage cheese on me mcohen. Provide your own matzoh. I used to like it but I’m old now and it’s hard to digest.

      God who doesn’t exist smiled on me earlier today. I was walking by the Bangladesh restaurant which recently opened down the street and a short jog to the left. It has a very large steam tray selected with a sizable takeout service. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been craving for real homemade beef stew. Rhetorical. Long time. I went in to look at the red tandoori chicken which I saw from the street, I don’t know why, it’s dry and I don’t really like it. But right in front of the tandoori chicken, mostly legs and thighs, was a large tray of what looked like old time beef stew with potatoes and everything. Oh no, I thought, watch this turn out to be goat. Nope. Label said beef curry. Good enough. $10 to go. It was out of this world heavenly.

      So I’m on a hitting streak mcohen. Cottage cheese with sour cream, followed by delicious beef stew that I didn’t even have to cook. As I left I heard George Harrison’s song playing in my mental jukebox.

      So it’s definitive now. It was the evil Americans? Wouldn’t surprise me. Because it does nothing for the USA and everything for Israel. How unusual. Guess who I won’t be voting for. Not that it matters – NY City and State is a given for the Biden side. How many more illegal immigrants till November next year? I sound like a right-wing republican. Obviously I’m crazy because I’m delighted with my nearby Bangladeshi restaurant. And the people were exceedingly kind. What’s wrong with me mcohen? Good question.

    • Fred says:

      mcohen,

      “built on the site of the current embassy, the US’ new compound ”

      Right were the US embassy was before. Hopefully the State Department people (best and brightest) have learned the difference between the military arm of Hezbollah and the political movement with 50+ seats in the Lebanese Parliment. It is an integral part of the society.
      https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-allies-win-62-seats-lebanon-parliament-losing-2018-majority-reuters-2022-05-17/

      “Remember the Arab spring.”
      Barack’s Liberation Movement. It didn’t work last time, maybe the second time but with US lives rather than speeches and money?

      • Stefan says:

        Hizb’Allah also has support far outside of the Shi’a community in Lebanon. They are reknowned for their social services which cater to Muslim and Christian alike.

  12. cobo says:

    I didn’t think that I would ever come back here, but this is the only relatively sane corner I can find. If I do comment here again, y’all will not like what I’m going to say. That doesn’t mean I’m committed to anything, but in the middle of a sht strm don’t expect good behavior from me. Cobo

    • F&L says:

      cobo –
      The Count of Bongoslavistan?

      The Corsair of Borealis-Omicron?

      The Crimeboss of Bosses?

      Your handle perplexes me cobo.

  13. mcohen says:

    Ttg

    Speaking of sacrifices I reread the posts of that guy you linked on twitter,stevius2.
    I think the Russians are having a problem with heavy equipment.
    Putin or a Ai version of him remarked in a video on twitter yesterday that the Israelis should reconsider sending heavy equipment into Gaza.

  14. F&L says:

    Seymour Hersh just now on Israeli plans to use US bunker busters. Is it a guinea pig demo for the purpose of scaring the Russians over their dug in positions? Random thought.

    https://tinyurl.com/en3zw473

    • mcohen says:

      Great news.will have far reaching consequences.E www T

      note to mcohen: say again, over

      • F&L says:

        mcohen

        You’re breaking up. We are losing your signal.
        —————
        Captain F&L, Sir.

        Yes, what is it?

        Agent mcohen has overdosed on matzoh again or the terrorists have poisoned it.

        Well, which is it?

        We are unable to make a determination at this time, Sir. Our 600 spies, I mean tourists, in Gaza are incommunicado.

  15. babelthuap says:

    Because it’s a business model not a movement. PLO (before Arafat hijacked it) was organic and peaceful with lots of momentum. All the leaders got pushed out with death threats.

    Terrorism is a business model. Sell the fear to the poor and ignorant. Take donations. Keep most of it, some to more terrorism, small amount to aid. Basically the same thing as our foundations and non profits. Is homelessness getting better in the US with all these organizations? No. It gets WORSE and will continue to get worse…meh.

    • Razor says:

      A business model eh? They’re only amateurs. The US is the real professional in the terrorism business, along with its master Israel and its Nato acolytes. Hamas has much to learn from them yet.

  16. Lesly says:

    “Hamas is forcing tens of thousands to endure sacrifice. Those tens of thousands are not choosing to be sacrificed. Why is Hamas steering events to bring about this mass sacrifice?”

    It’s an easy decision to make, if Hamas believes what is best for them is best for all the Palestinians.

  17. Kim Sky says:

    I apologize for my rant here, I am confused!!!

    Two wars, Ukraine/Israel, their connection?
    1) US and West support the innocent peoples who were invaded
    2) cannot think of anything else

    I’m feeling cross-eyed at the moment!!! My capacity right now to handle the coming massacre is flailing. What next? Who aligns with who? I do know the Saudi people hate Israel, and the rulers of the Middle East don’t give to figs about the Palestinians! Apparently Hezbolla has had lots of experience in Syria…

    Militarily armed men anywhere and everywhere are goofy boys with toys!

    P.S. I don’t support Hamas, I don’t support the Israeli continual usurpation of Palestinian lands either.

    If we must first and foremost denounce Hamas’s actions, then the Israelis must first and foremost denounce their actions!

    • Fred says:

      Kim,

      End colonization now! Let the Dhali Lhama go home! Free Tibet – from those “goofy boys with toys” that is the PLA.

  18. F&L says:

    Fr9m Nesmiyan. You’d almost think we’re in a whirrled war. Azerbaijan is a close ally of Israel. But this is complex. And Blinken is an arch neocon, coincidentally.
    https://t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/13537
    Secretary of State Blinken said Azerbaijan could invade Armenia in the coming weeks.

    The US interest in such a development of events is quite understandable – Iran will be forced to react to such an event, which means a new point of either tension or direct conflict will arise.

    The United States has already excluded Russia from world politics; now it would be nice to do the same with Iran. The goal is to cut off any allyship opportunities for China and, conversely, to burden it with the problems of its vassals.

    Whether Aliyev is ready to work in the interests of the United States is a question, since it is unlikely that he does not understand the risks that arise from such a development of events. On the other hand, you need to understand that today Armenia is weak, Russia is not able to fulfill any obligations to it as a member of the CSTO. And such an opportunity may not present itself in the future.

    Therefore, the risk is great, and success in the case of the implementation of the project to create a corridor to Nakhichevan is also high.

    • leith says:

      F&L –

      Nesmiyan is cracked. We still have some troops in Armenia. No way Blinken is going to encourage the Azeris to attack. The US has longstanding economic, humanitarian and military ties with Yerevan. There is a strong Armenian lobby in Washington DC from their large diaspora in both GOP and Dem congressional districts. And AFAIK we still have some troops in Armenia.

      But Nesmiyan is right that the corridor will be a flash point with Iran. Which is why it is being encouraged by Netanyahu. He has a long term relationship with them. Including giving them military and intel support against both Karabakh and Armenia itself. The ancient proverb “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has never gone away.

      • F&L says:

        I don’t know / – yes the Arminian diaspora in the USA is very strong. But Nesmiyan is speaking of a very recent development, hours and days, not even weeks & months. I’ve heard that Azerbaijan is amassing troops from other sources too. The developments in the Holy Roller land may have changed things, I don’t knock. “Nesmiyan is cracked.” And you are the crack detector now? Can you please tell me if any earthquakes are on the way in the NE of the USA?

  19. TonyL says:

    F&L,

    “Be careful throwing around words like “idiotic.””

    My appology. Of course that term is not directed at you personally. It meant to be a reminder for us all to avoid judging a people based on some stereotype.
    I’m sure you know how big the casino industry is, and millions are addicted to gambling in the US.

    • F&L says:

      Thanks, no problem.

      My parents last retirement home was in a suburb of Bethlehem Pennsylvania, because it was my mom’s hometown and he could never say so to her. I visited at Christmas for some of the yrs between 1990 and 2002 when my dad died. I know a bit about the place. In their youth you couldn’t see across the street on a sunny day due to the steel mill’s pollution which I only know from photos. So let’s say my personal knowledge ended a few days after July 4th when he died, though maybe later, mom had to go into senior living which was in New Jersey, but that was done quickly.

      My point .. I nearly fell over when I saw a news piece with video clips of the huge problems Bethlehem was having due to the traffic jams and gridlock due to the Chinese gamblers coming every weekend to the Bally’s casino which had opened there. From the China towns in Manhattan and Queens which are vastly larger now. It was staggering how rapid the change was.

      “The place is always packed, no one eats there anymore.” Yogi Berra.

      Anyway, it was beyond weird to me. I used to see the NY Chinese buying weekend bus tickets all the time while sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Queens. It never occurred to me they could possibly be headed there.

      I’ve known gamblers all my life and even had a bit of a problem myself in my youth but managed to quit. Indeed it’s huge here, said Al Capone to Donald Trump. Meyer Lansky, Arnold Rothstein, Sheldon Adelstein, the NY Stock exchange, Bernie Madoff, Michael Bloomberg, Bugsy Siegel, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky & many others. Nice Jewish boys. It’s not all Chinese by a long shot.

  20. Kim Sky says:

    Dear Fred,

    I guess we’re not giving the land back to the American Indians then? I have personal experience witnessing “armies” with their guns!!! The IRA can be included in the list. No, I’m not telling you which ones I’ve seen.

    I rather liked this story:

    Saudi King Abdul Aziz met US President Roosevelt on Feb. 14, 1945

    …On board the USS Quincy, Roosevelt told Ibn Saud that he felt a personal responsibility for the ultimate fate of the Jews, “and indeed had committed himself to help solve this problem.” What, he asked, “could the King suggest?” Ibn Saud’s reply “was prompt and laconic: ‘Give them and their descendants the choicest lands and homes of the Germans who had oppressed them’.”

    Roosevelt said the Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution in Europe had “a sentimental desire to settle in Palestine and, quite understandably, would dread remaining in Germany where they might suffer again.”

    The suggestion surprised the king. “He said that he had no doubt the Jews have good reason not to trust the Germans,” Eddy reported, “but surely the Allies will destroy Nazi power forever and in their victory will be strong enough to protect Nazi victims?” After all, if the Allies did not expect to control future German policy, “why fight this costly war? He, Ibn Saud, could not conceive of leaving an enemy in a position to strike back after defeat.”

    Roosevelt pressed on, saying he was counting on “Arab hospitality and on the King’s help in solving the problem of Zionism,” but Ibn Saud was adamant. “Make the enemy and the oppressor pay,” he said. “That is how we Arabs wage war. Amends should be made by the criminal, not by the innocent bystander. What injury have Arabs done to the Jews of Europe? It is the ‘Christian’ Germans who stole their homes and lives. Let the Germans pay.”

    Link: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1627196/saudi-arabia

    Know we didn’t want all those Jews in the US… nor Europe for that matter!

    ANOTHER NOTE: interesting how many dysfunctional governments are out there right now. Apparently X-amount of Israeli soldiers are refusing to go into Gaza. Guess they don’t have that suicidal urge? I think the Israelis want more dead Israelis so they can complete the irradiation of Palestinians on ISRAELI LAND.

    Perhaps the inevitable solution is for the armed-forces to run the world? Instead of politicians who huff and puff.

    • Fred says:

      Kim,

      Being native I’ll be happy to see you decolonize yourself. Figure out how many olive trees Hamas (or any other Palestinian) has planted since that great tragedy?

      • TTG says:

        Fred,

        There are still some 40,000 olive trees in Gaza in spite of continued Israeli efforts to uproot them and spray herbicides on Gaza land. The Israeli government and settler efforts to wipe out the West Bank and Gaza olive production is ongoing.

        • Fred says:

          TTG,

          Hamas managed a total of 40,000 trees over a decade and a half? How are the settlers entering Gaza to spray herbicies on them?

          • TTG says:

            Fred,

            It’s the occupation forces who spray herbicides especially along the separation fence, probably like crop dusting or spreading agent orange. The settlers are hitting the trees in the West Bank. With 2 million people living in that small an area along with other crops, I doubt the Gazans can establish many more olive orchards.

          • Fred says:

            TTG,

            I’m sure settlers on the Israeli side have done just that, but spraying “Like Agent Orange”, really?

          • TTG says:

            Fred,

            How do you think they sprayed herbicide? I doubt they walked around with hand sprayers. BTW, it’s the Israeli government that sprayed herbicide in Gaza, not settlers.

          • Fred says:

            TTG,

            I’m sure there’s years of video available in the UN archives where this was brought up over and over.

  21. F&L says:

    Update to psychological profile of Benjamin (bend and jam em in) Netanyahu;

    Omri had the odd distinction of being an Israelite king who experienced, or took part in, three rebellions or civil wars. Even though he was king for a comparatively short time, the Bible says that he surpassed the evil deeds of all the kings before him.

    See this from whence I copied it:
    https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/biblepathways/bible-pathway-april-28-2012.html

    Relevance? Bibi named his son Omri.

    Do you think there might have been at least a thousand Olde Testymint names to choose from? He picked the name of the most evil King ever of ancient fairytale Israel.
    Did even Joe Biden or Donald Trump name a son Adolph?

    Prime Minister Adolph Johnson shook hands today with President Adolph Obama today on the lawn of the Fourth Reich’s new Weisse Haus. Vice President Petulia Dracula IV looked on smiling. Supreme Court Chieftain Hyman Morris Frankenstein had sworn in President Adolph Obama only minutes earlier. We return you now to our hosts the Werewolf and the Mummy at NBC studios in Gnu Yawk.

    • TTG says:

      Fred,

      Given that horror and all the other horrors visited upon the Jewish people for the offense of being Jewish, along with recent history in Israel, I would think the Israeli authorities would have been more vigilant in guarding the Jewish people near the Gaza border. The new found drive to end Hamas is understandable and necessary, but that does not the authority’s gross negligence.

      • F&L says:

        And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him (I Kin. 16:30-31).

        But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up (21:25)
        —————————

        TTG – Do you want a list of the evil since 1948?
        Does murdering Rabin make the list?
        Sabra & Shatilla?
        Shooting down the Boeing 707 which had turned around already after wandering into the Sinai in 1972 killing 111 civilians?
        Murdering 34 US sailors on the USS Liberty, trying to sink it, wounding over 100 more because possibly they might overhear the murdering of hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war going on as they attacked the ship?

        You know darn well I could go on for pages TTG, but I’m exhausted. Netanyahu has wanted to wipe out Gaza for a long time and he wants to do the same to Iran. No one believes the Intel failure story. CNN has published that the US Intelligent on Oct 6 warned Israel that Hamas might attack. Independent of the Egyptians. You know darn well how the business works.

        We’ve acknowledged over 600 Americans in Gaza now and haven’t got them out. Are they all tourists? That’s a joke. “Let’s tour the Gaza Strip, Honey, and bring our Brownie cameras to compare with our iPhone shots, OK?” “Sure thing, Pumpkin, we can fit it in Between Somalia and Avdiika.” So tourism is kind of eliminated.

        559 for the special Gaza felafel sauce recipe convention, because everyone is tired and bored with the West Bank prison colony recipe?

        Ok ok, now that makes sense, you got me there.

        So only 41 “journalists” I guess. Well I guess that leaves no room at all for CIA, DIA, State Department and FBI and contractor spies and agents.

        Zero drug dealers on the payroll working with the DEA. Of course not, the Gazans are holy Muslims and drug dealing is strictly forbidden by the Koran and commentaries.

        And the British who got the whole ball rolling with Balfour? Maybe a few tailors who are interested in the special threads made from children’s hair who were killed in bombings, because Arab children’s hair is well known to be superior to any other for stitching up the patches on the elbows of Oxford Professor’s tweed jackets. As you know, Cambridge prefers hair from slaughtered Ukrainian 12 year old blondes. But aside from that why would there be any British. Oh no, do you think the tailors might work for MI6 on weekends during leap years? Forgot about that.

        • TTG says:

          F&L,

          Your cursory list of Israel being no good shits to Palestinians and others over the years is all the more reason for them in being much more vigilant. Their arrogance clearly overrode their vigilance.

          I bet the majority of those 600 Americans in Gaza are aid workers.

      • Fred says:

        TTG,

        I believe you pointed out it would not have been too difficult an operation to set up, or at least at least keep concealed. The IDF made a number of errors, on top of the rot Col. Lang pointed over the years. A lot of forced retirements and a few courts martials are certainly in order.

        I think they’re in a ‘phony-war’ stage right now. The uniparty/borg (foreign policy establishment, including our ‘allies’) are all in on getting America actively involved. The latest off MSNBC/CNN was that Bibi invited Biden to Israel. I hope he not stupid enough to go.

        • TTG says:

          Fred,

          I think you’re right. I doubt the IDF is too keen on mixing it up with Hamas in the rubble and tunnels of Gaza. They’re probably hoping some unicorn will come prancing in and drop a glittering, yet less bloody, solution at their feet.

          Biden went to Kyiv, so I wouldn’t be overly surprised if he allows himself to be talked into visiting Tel Aviv. So far he’s talked Israel into turning on the water in south Gaza and Egypt into allowing humanitarian aid into the same area. He’s also arranged for foreigners to evacuate through Egypt. I’m fine with all that and munitions, but nothing beyond that.

          • Fred says:

            TTG,

            As you well know unicorns come with every free lunch. The IDF has an unenviable task and will just have to suck it up. The press seems to have bifurcated into the kill them all, appease them all halves. The editorial boards must think that’s good for ratings.

        • F&L says:

          Exhibit One.
          A “landlord.” Yes, but of course.
          Remember these reports from NYT?:
          -A “man” threw a 32 year old doctor of Chinese ethnicity onto.the tracks of an ongoing subway train. It came on the heels of scores of similar brutal attacks on individuals across the nation also commited by “men.” –
          https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/us/muslim-boy-stabbed-landlord-chicago.html
          6-Year-Old Boy Fatally Stabbed in Anti-Muslim Attack, Authorities Say.
          Officials said they considered the attack, outside of Chicago, a hate crime, tied to the fighting in Israel and Gaza.
          “This was directly connected to dehumanizing of Palestinians,” said Abdelnasser Rashid, a Democratic Illinois state representative who is Palestinian American.

          Investigators in Will County, Ill., southwest of Chicago, described a gory scene. They said a 71-year-old landlord turned on the boy and his mother, who were his tenants, at their home in Plainfield Township on Saturday morning, stabbing them repeatedly with a serrated knife that had a seven-inch blade.
          ————
          So as you can see, it must have been a landlord.

          Exhibit Two –
          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/16/joe-biden-says-israel-reoccupying-gaza-would-be-big-mistake/

          Biden says Israel reoccupying Gaza would be ‘big mistake’
          The US president condemned the ‘pure barbarism’ of Hamas but said there ‘needs to be a path to a Palestinian state’.
          warned Israel against reoccupying Gaza, but promised the US would send everything it needs to fight Hamas.

          “I think it’d be a big mistake,” the US president said on the CBS flagship documentary 60 Minutes on Sunday night, in his first major public remarks on restraining America’s ally.

          “Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people. And I think that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again.”

          Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and while Mr Biden supports the destruction of Hamas, his administration remains committed to a “two-state” solution.

          “There needs to be a Palestinian authority. There needs to be a path to a Palestinian state,” he said. (More at link)

      • John Minehan says:

        This will not be that easy,

        The effort in 2014 was a Textbook op; 2008-’09 wasn’t, The IDF needs to do this with care.

        Very feasable but far from impossible to screw up.

  22. Kim Sky says:

    Fred, you made me angry… my apologies! You are being funny, I get it. I do get upset about trees, they symbolize so so much about life, imagine 2,000 to 4,000 years old, too bad they cannot tell stories.

    Headline: “Israeli forces shot their own civilians, kibbutz survivor says”

    Not hard to believe, sudden fighting… chaos, whatever.

    So crazy, WAR, look at the map, an itty bitty piece of land, and Israel is as WAR with this little bit?

    Anyway, dysfunctional governments that is the key. An opportunity to imagine the future, the kind of hatred amongst the Israeli’s is fantastical. USA going that route too?

    • Fred says:

      Kim,

      It grieves me deeply that your feelings are hurt. Hamas had a decade and a half to endure the unedurable and create a just, verdant, peaceful Gaza. With billions in UN, USAID, and other incomes, to do it with. In stead they decided to …..

  23. Christian J Chuba says:

    To me, Al Aqsa looks like an attack on military installations combined with an effort to take civilian hostages to thwart reprisal bombings by the IDF. Massacring civilians completely negates this goal and I am skeptical that there were massacres but I want to learn the truth.

    I hate to doubt Israeli accounts but the U.S. has encouraged them to lie because of decades of accepting everything they say as fact. It is human nature. Give someone a blank check and they will use it. BTW I believe something really bad happened to civilians but I do not know what. It’s just that IDF press releases sound like every false thing that countries have said since WW1 (Germans bayoneting babies) up to the famous Saddam, ‘incubator babies’.

    I have a sick feeling. Nothing, absolutely nothing good will come out of this.

    • F&L says:

      Christian J Chuba

      Our highly classified Team B has finally submitted it’s report.

      As you may know there is a lot of chatter for several yrs now about the sun spot cycle and the giantic magneto-hydro dynamic storms which astronomers say has reached magnitudes never previously observed. Fears of another Carrington event which would wipe out communications everywhere were bruited about.

      Team A thought it was disinformation to prepare for a Russian nuclear weapons EMP blast, which would put us into the terrible status of having to respond in kind which would destroy at the minimum civilization and possibly much worse.

      So the lies about unprecedented solar electric storms were disseminated by the CIA, using it’s resources in the media, NASA etc. If comms kerplunked it would be that feisty God Apollo and his chariot of fiery flying horses called Sol or the Sun, not the Rooskies.

      But there are folks who are not so advanced as we are or the Rooskies or the Chinese and Indians. They read the astrophysical journals, not precisely but they do read popular science. And in their anxious minds they reached the conclusion that the sun was about to go Supernova any day or week now.

      So they did what those ancient savages always did. They sacrificed a huge number of people including children especially to their sun gods. So that the sun would come up tomorrow.

      And now they think it worked.

      • Christian J Chuba says:

        F&L, I don’t understand your response, is it a way of saying, ‘I am denying the obvious’? I can’t tell.

        The Israeli narrative is that Hamas is just like ISIS and must be destroyed just as ruthlessly. To back this up, Israel claims that, 1. Israeli women and children were tied up and beheaded, and 2. they retrieved ‘top secret’ orders and manifestos from Hamas stating Hamas’ intention of killing as many jews as possible. If these facts are true then Israel will win that argument all day in the U.S. and I would be hard pressed to deny their logic. Losing the arab street doesn’t matter since most of the oil states wealth is in USD $.

        But are these assertions true? Israel is basically saying take our word for it, we can’t show you the videos because they are too gruesome. Maybe it is true, can’t tell.

        • Eric Newhill says:

          Chuba,

          Read Hamas’original charter. It removes all mystery and navel gazing that you enjoy as a diversion from the hideous reality. They are homicidal fanatics just like ISIS.

          A jihadi is a jihadi is a jihadi.

          • TTG says:

            Eric Newhill,

            Agree with you on this. No one should be apologizing for Hamas vile crimes. Understand them, sure, but there is no justification. Israel must destroy them and be willing to pay the price to ensure their destruction. It’s also the only hope the Palestinians have to some day achieve some kind of just peace.

          • Eric Newhill says:

            TTG,
            Thank you.

            Yes, as soon as the Palestinians are free from Hamas and similar ideologies, there is opportunity to then develop something that gives those poor people some opportunity for hope.

            I am not huge fan of Israel – only because I’m an America firster – but I do believe, in the balance, it is the far more reasonable party, are rational and, therefore, open to suggestions from the civilized members of the international community and would prefer peace over perpetual war.

            My hope is that Hamas is utterly crushed and the Palestinians left with no hope other than to accept a good deal from the powers that be. It must be a fair and realistic good deal. I do think it will have to be a generational effort. The current generation will have too much hate, especially after the deaths that are coming. But with good faith from Israel and the US and Arab nations, perhaps the each subsequent generation of Palestinians can learn to live a good, satisfying, independent, life and not seek the destruction of Israel. As the song says, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.

            Yes, many more Israelis are going to die too. Sometimes these tragedies are unavoidable. Sometimes something better can arise from the ruins (see Japan and Germany post WW2 as examples). But too often that better way is only paved over the bones and ashes. Some people are massively pig headed and need their comeuppance.

          • jld says:

            @Eric Newhill

            But with good faith from Israel and the US and Arab nations,

            😀 😀 😀
            (agreement capable, all of them…)

          • Stefan says:

            You realise Hamas is just a few decades old right? Your claim the Israelis will make peace after religious extremists ignores their long unwillingness to make peace with 70+ years of secular Palestinan resistance. It also ignore Israel’s role in the foundation and ruise in Hamas. If they don’t like Islamic extremists, stop helping to found their organisations, stop releasing their prisoners. Honestly, your comments are a point for point cut and paste from Israeli propaganda and I find it in really poor taste to you to come to Colonel Lang’s blog and attack him on this subject when he is no hear to defend himself. Poor taste indeed.

        • Eric Newhill says:

          Chuba,
          The problem is that lots of people in the west don’t want to see Hamas as the jihadis that they are. Rather they fall for the poor oppressed victims BS smoke screen that Hamas emits out its ass.

          The Palestinian problem began when Arabs couldn’t accept Jews/infidels sharing their turf.

          There is no way to negotiate or male peace with a jihadi other than converting under a raised sword.

          • Stefan says:

            Jews have a long history of living in Muslim lands. Many fled there from the various pogroms and mass murders in European Christian lands. They had their own native Jewish communities as well. Much of the Middle East is/was MUCH more diverse in religious and ethnic terms than Christian lands and European lands ever thought about being. Try picking up a history book and stop the mainlining of Zionist disinformation.

        • F&L says:

          Christian J Chuba

          I was being my usual nutcase self. My story boils down to very nearly saying that they are hopeless primitives who murdered 1000 people and will kill thousands more because they were so out of their gourds that they thought the sacrifice would ensure that the sun came up the next day. Like the Aztecs and others. Very sorry. Forgive me if possible.

          This brings me perilously close to agreeing with Eric Newhill and TTG. Yikes.

          As you may have missed it I belong to a school of thought that highly suspects that fishy business was afoot and this was in some way allowed to happen by overconfident twirps like Putin who thought he could take Kiev in 3 days, but these twirps didn’t realize how severe the attack would be and thus got it hard between the eyes with a sledgehammer. Actually I suspect much worse, but I’ll leave that aside for now.

          The point is beware of falling into a trap. If you have a hairtrigger temper you will because you prescribe the genocidal remedy on offer on TV and here too by a few. Eric did the other day. But Eric might be a man who thinks with his fists, I can’t tell but he boxes at an advanced age. But I have that tendency too and it’s caused me trouble. The big bad hegemonic USA and the Israelis have been thinking only with their fists and bombers forever and a day now. It’s shows a terrible example to their citizens and overseas. They do the multicultural tango here (not Israel) while simultaneously provoking large ethnic and sectarian groups.

          Even Jewish Jake Tapper on CNN and beautiful Margaret Brennan on CBS are very skeptical of the story that it’s simply an intelligence failure.

          “A jihadi is a jihadi is a jihadi.” No kidding, however they conquered huge regions of the world in the 8th century CE. They got to the gates of Vienna in the 16th century which was only saved by the King of Poland. Now they’re everywhere. I happen to think that Netanyahu’s nut job fundamentalists have reaped what they have sewn.

  24. F&L says:

    Biden got Netanyahu to turn on the water for Gaza.

  25. F&L says:

    https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/11/saudis-announce-joint-military-exercises-china/
    “Say goodbye to Hollywood,” sang Billy Joel.
    “No, that’s the Suez Canal you’re thinking of,” said Elton John.
    “Are you sure?” asked Helen of Troy.
    “Calm down, I am a former US Naval Officer,” said Senator Lindsay Graham-Cracker, with a slight lisp.
    After killing hundreds of Gazan civilians and turning over 500,000 gazans homeless, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said to President Joe Biden: “A drink of water? Ok. My water tankers needn’t get so many flat tires when I invade and that’s your third wish, Joe.” And then he vanished into a tiny bottle in a puff of smoke.

    • leith says:

      Lindsey was Air Force. They gave him a Bronze Star for his service as a JAG adviser, the guy had a dozen ribbons on his uniform back in the day, more than most grunts who saw combat.

      He is cracked also. Cheered on Saudi bombs falling on a Yemeni market in Sanaa, the Capital. Blocked a Senate resolution to officially recognize the Armenian genocide. Too many more to list.

  26. Stephanie says:

    F & L,

    The water is turned on only in the south, and in one report I read, only parts of the south. (Gaza’s most important hospital is located in the north.)

    • F&L says:

      You’re right. It’s to encourage them to leave the North. If they do then the Israelis will simply repeat. They want to drive them out entirely. Imo it’s monstrous but they know that the Roman Colosseum never played to an empty house.

  27. walrus says:

    God has a sense of humor. Why else would he permit Israel to inflict exactly the same tortures as were inflicted on its majority on all Palestinians?

    For any student of history, it is uncanny watching the Israelis mimic the Germans, right down to “sippenhaft’ (collective responsibility), the denial of the existence of a palestinian state with the associated national soveriegnty for its citizens and even its iconography – depicting Hamas as a cockroach being squashed by an IDF boot. The strategy is eerily similar.

    But Hamas started this! To which I say, since they are inmates of an open air prison; “if not now, when?”.

    The harrowing stories of Israeli soccer moms getting shot up as they drive their Exus makes me vomit. Haven’t you heard of the golden rule ? how many grieving palestinian mothers are there? The sight and sound of western politicians reciting their lines for their masters also makes me want to vomit.

    If Israel invades Gaza and succeeds in triggering hezbollah and Iran we will richly deserve the ensuing nuclear war.

  28. Kim Sky says:

    The U.S. has moved way too many troops into the Middle East to be of peaceful purpose or to simply deter others from action.

    I’d say the tried and true way to rule a country ready to split at the seams… it to incite a WAR. War with Russia wasn’t working, so, war with Islam. China attempted to make peace between Iran and Saudi. I was waiting to see what they’d come up with to destroy that. Fear of Iran+Russia+China?

    Perhaps?

    That groovy deal with Poland? Perhaps they can get Russia and China to go after the Islamic countries?

    That’ll make a peace?

  29. Stefan says:

    With Hamas gone there will be a path to peace? Similar ideologies as Hamas? I guess there is a collective amnesia here. The resistance in Palestine was secular for DECADES. This isnt about Islamism. In the US BDS is being made illegal in locations, states, universities. Anyone speaking out against the Israeli crimes is being shut down as an anti-Semite. Freedom of speech on the issue is minimal.

    The issue isnt Hamas, their Islamist ideology and murderous disdain for women and children. The issue is that NO resistance to Israelis actions, violent, non violent, Islamic, secular, is okay.

    I firmly believe that a good reading of the history of Israel/Palestine shows there has NEVER been any intention to allow a Palestinian state. No two state solution, no one state solution. Who can blame the Israelis? The US has been running cover for Israeli crimes for decades. Running cover on the international stage and funding them. Israel has NEVER been held to account for what they have done. There is no need for them to look for peace. They made a choice a long time ago that they can live with the way things are and hold onto the land and that is just what they are doing, and will do.

    The Palestinians are in a terrible position. There is no military solution and even their non violent tactics, ie BDS, protesting Israeli actions, are often outlawed, made illegal, shut down. Supporters of Israel have made it clear: NO resistance to Israel will be allowed, violent or otherwise. Palestinians have two options. Agree to do whatever Israel demands or die.

    Anyone saying with Hamas out of the way there is a path to peace is naïve, at best.

    • TTG says:

      Stefan,

      Without Hamas, the Palestinians can turn to the Palestinian Authority. They’re at least as corrupt and more ineffective than the Netanyahu government, but they’re not terrorists like Hamas or ISIS. They’ve come a long way from their PLO days.

      • Stefan says:

        What has the PA ever done for the Palestinians? They have done nothing, and will do nothing. PA leadership is a pipeline to nothing but continued Israeli domination.

        The Israelis are not better than Hamas. I dont like Hamas, but I am not stupid enough to think the PA offers anything to the Palestinian people. As a matter of fact, it is the massive corruption and the inability of the PA to do anything which made Hamas so popular in the first place.

        Terrorism? It doesnt matter, when Israel and their supporters are not busy with terrorism, they are busy with shutting down non violent dissent like BDS. As I said before, Israel and their supporters do not want to allow dissent of ANY kind, non violent, violent, they want Palestinians to sit back and die. Unfortunately this is just fine with both political parties in the US and most of the West.

        When a people have no hope you should not be surprised at what they will do.

  30. Keith Harbaugh says:

    Excellent points. Thank you.

  31. Kim Sky says:

    This is the way I see it… and if you have a better analysis please enlighten me!

    Netanyahu’s declaration: we will have a new middle-east, translation: first Hamas, then Hezbolla, then Iran.

    More than 20,000 killed, another 1,000 killed in latest bombing of hospital.

    Leaders on verge of loosing control of populations, not one leader can dare say a thing against Hamas ! US offered al-Sisi 20-billion to take Palestinians!

    Arabs of all schisms are all chanting, “We are all Hamas”

    West Bank, over 800 arrested. Citizens wandering around Israel with guns, terrified, AND committing murders of Palestinians all over the place.

    IF PEACE COMES SOON, some kind of normality, groups on their own will continually attack Israel. To live in Israel from now on has been destroyed.

    What do they do?

    My conclusion is: Respond even more radically !!!

    • Fred says:

      Kim,

      21,000 dead in the seven days since Hamas killed and injured a thousand or more Israelis? Why if this goes on for a year like Ukraine, Hamas will run out of Palestinians!

      “US offered al-Sisi 20-billion to take Palestinians!”

      Nobody wants Palestinians in their country. Even their own leadership lives in Qatar. Maybe they should go their; that’s where a lot of their funding has come from anyway.

      • TTG says:

        Fred,

        At that rate they can get rid of the Gazans in 2 years. Then there’s the West Bank Palestinians.

        • Fred says:

          TTG,

          At least Hamas leaders will be safe and sound in Qatar, where their courage and UN money took them all those years ago. We won’t have to hear complaints about Palestinian rapes and murders any longer, now we get to hear how the IDFAF is just like the Russians – targeting hospitals on purpose. Investigation, ha ha who needs those #believetheNYT. Thankfully Biden the Great will solve all that with his Obama holdover experts at State to help him out.

          • Stefan says:

            Israelis have a long history of attacking hospitals. Like this is the first? They popped their hospital cherry a long time ago. Google is your friend.

  32. mcohen says:

    Mooser from mondoweiss.
    Soros = tsuris

    Advanced ai chatbot model no 3

  33. Kim Sky says:

    i guess you all are behind the next WAR…

    doesn’t seem like a bright idea to me?

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