Shut Your Kumbaya

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

The world is full of pretty lies. And normally, I’m able to scroll past them and go “oh, idiocy, more idiocy.”

Today is not that day. No, listen to me. Today is not that day.

I was scrolling through twitter looking for an update on the war in Israel, and I came across this:

And I stopped. And I read that post. Every single word of it is a lie. A lot of it are pernicious lies. And they’re told by well-intentioned people who can’t or won’t look at the world without the rose colored glasses.

It’s not just these things are lies. It’s “they’ve been proven to be lies, over and over again.” But a lot of, perhaps the majority of “educated” people in the west piously believe them. Because they want them to be true.

Start therefore with that “Education” — education can be many things, but some of the best educated people in the world at the time led World War I. And while on that, do you realize the cultures fighting knew each other very, very well. Heck, most of the nobility was related to each other across Europe. Which did not stand in the way of turning Europe into one vast abattoir.

In fact, most of the vicious wars were civil, or between neighboring countries that knew each other’s cultures intimately. So this “Get to know the other culture better” is utter and complete poppycock. Or as the British say “Bollocks.” And smelly bollocks, at that.

As for all cultures, all systems, all value systems being equally worthy of respect?

Oh, really? So, a culture that enslaves women is the same as one that values women? A culture that protects and takes care of the weak is the same as one that tortures and kills them? A culture that welcomes difference is the same as one that pounds down the nail that sticks up? A system where — as in all communist systems — a small elite lives very well while others starve is the same as one where private property allows even the poor to suffer from obesity? And a culture that doesn’t believe it has to exterminate its neighbors is the same as one that does?

Don’t be ridiculous.

And as for not stigmatizing, dividing, etc? Pernicious bullshit. Pernicious bullshit on stilts. The horrible savages who kidnapped innocent people at a rave and raped women to death are not the same as people who are breaking themselves trying to spare the innocent. There is no comparison.

And evil needs to be called out and stigmatized. Else, it will take over the world. Go read this: Proportionate about Gang Rape.

Savages celebrate the death of and desecrate the corpses of those who’d never harm them because they CAN. Because they’ve been marinated in hate and their own superiority from birth.

Their culture is not the same as those people who try to save the wounded and help the victims of natural disaster. And they shouldn’t be treated the same and looked at the same.

If there’s hope for the savages it is for them to realize and be made ashamed of their savagery. And that won’t be achieved with some highfalutin “education” which will only give them better words to justify why they should be able to rape and kill innocents. No. the only way they learn it is by being stigmatized, shamed, and having vengeance rained upon them. And having them know they did wrong. And that the rest of humanity will not tolerate their evil.

Coddling them and treating them like precious darlings that don’t know better and just need understanding? Will only destroy civilization and spread their evil savagery everywhere.

No, the answers aren’t what I was taught at my very good college. Or what you were taught, either. And they’re certainly not the principles of international bodies that seem to enable only kakistocracies and rapinage.

But they’re the way we get out of this loop. The only way. We have to denounce evil and let them know it’s evil. That they did evil and will not profit from it.

Everything else is a betrayal of humanity and civilization.

These are not the answers I’d wish for. They keep me awake at night.

But they’re the only ones that work, so our children and grandchildren don’t live in hell.

571 thoughts on “Shut Your Kumbaya”

      1. The more I learn about some cultures the more I realize their habits of mind are more alien that 80%+ of the aliens in science fiction novels.

        1. If some cultures’ beliefs and practices were written as fiction no one would accept them as even possible; they’d break the required “willing suspension of disbelief”. “Oh, that’s just too unbelievable!”

          1. Yeah

            “Never again!”

            “But don’t let folks defend themselves!”

            That got a bunch killed.

          1. Just remember, they call YOU a colonizer.

            Who still thinks we can live in the same country as these people? Bueller???

            1. Only if they acculturate to America. The problem as I see it is that Obama & Co. deliberately allowed and encouraged Muslim immigration and centralization in Michigan and Minnesota in the same form as the Free State project in order to weasel in Muslim representatives into Congress for the specific purpose of undermining and sabotaging America.

                1. The parents come here to get away from it all back home, but then their kids feel a need to reconnect with the old country. Or at least that’s the impression that I get.

              2. They figure they can corrupt and subvert Islam the same way they subvert and corrupt Judaism and Christianity, and everyone else.

                The Lefts problem is that they are now facing folks that intend to enslave the Left, not reform it or out politic it.

        3. There is a reason most cultures term for themselves translates as “the people” and identifies those around as others (typically with derogatory terms).

        4. Very true. Learning about other cultures is valuable for world-building not so much for what you learn as to build an internal alarm to alert you that you are assuming that your culture’s actions are universal, or even typical, and to check whether they would really fit.

      2. Everyone basically wants the same thing. The difference is the cultural filter. That cultural filter is what makes Russians and Hamas slime balls.

      3. That is the common media definition of “culture.” Even back when I was learning anthropology from old school diggers and Commie bastard loonies, they both agreed that culture was a whole hell of a lot more than that.

        The current crop of credentialed idiots, be they from my former field or news, or politics… They are lesser than the men that came before. Less intelligent. Less pragmatic, practical knowledge and experience. Less earned gravitas through accomplishment and expertise. Less able to articulate complicated topics to less educated men. Less serious. Less sane.

        Culture is much deeper than the “clothes and food” and occasional holiday we snatch because we’re a magpie culture (shiny things we like!). FIFO was, and is, what works. America is no land of blood. It is the land of an idea.

        More the fool he that forgets that.

  2. Proportionate is Israel doing to Gaza what the Gazans intend for Israel. Make the rubble bounce.
    Also, ever notice the “Apartheid” claimers never seem to decry the extremely secure border of Gaza and Egypt? It ain’t there because Egypt thinks Israelis might come across.

    2. The same people screaming “apartheid” at Israel are the same people who insist that Palestinians are entitled to a Judenfrei state, and that a single Jew may live in such a state. Given that their vision of such a “Palestinian” state is as a complete replacement for Israel (which is the meaning of their “from the river to the sea” chants and their reference to “78 years of occupation”, i.e. the 1948 establishment of modern Israel.) Their fundamental problem is the existence and presence of Jews. Period.

      1. The idea of “Palestine” as an ancestral homeland is also a bit disingenuous. Until WWI there was no political entity by that name, only a designated area where certain groups of people lived, something like Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula or the SF Bay Area. Palestine as a (somewhat) independent entity was the creation of the West after WWI. Maps:

        https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/maps/poltext.html

        There are others; search on “map middle east 1900”.

        1. I’d argue that’s incorrect. Although the origin of Palestine is pre any Arab identity in the region. While so forms are earlier (notably Herodotus uses the name in The Histories) the earliest usage of it for a geopolitical entity is after the third Jewish rebellion the Romans renamed the province of Judea. to Syria Palaestina. It was later subdivided during the Byzantine period to a Prima and Secunda Palestina.

          Regardless, the locals would not have spoken Arabic, but Greek (Eastern Empire was Greek speaking) except for some holdouts due to the Hellenization by Alexander and his successors. Religiously they could not be Islamic until well in the Byzantine period.

          1. And note that the Roman conquest was of a nation established by Jews. Romans noted the Jewish population of said conquered nation on multiple occasions, and indeed the Roman’s crushing of the last of the three major rebellions against Roman Rule was memorialized in Rome in Trajan’s Arch, will still stands to this.

            Notwithstanding this long established history, the so-called Palestinians and their leftist apologists are rapidly working to rewrite history to erase this historical Jewish presence and history in order to claim that Jews only started living in Israel in the 19th century and are European colonialists. In other words, they are once again emulating the Nazis in their efforts to erase Jews from both history and the present.

          2. At least 1st Century AD the spoken languages would have been mostly variants of Aramaic. The lingua franca and means of most written communication would have been Koine (common) Greek. Some people from the Roman area itself would have spoken and written Latin but that would be rare (A detail gotten wrong in the Passion of the Christ). Ancient Arabic (what the Quran is written in) itself seems to derive from some of the Aramaic.

            1. Spoken and written Latin was very big among the North African colonists and native Romans, and in the Roman law school town of Berea (which became Beirut). But yup, it took a fair amount of time for Latin to get bigger than Greek in the West, except among lawyers.

          3. Point(s) taken; I was only commenting on the more recent historical period, which is the one they seem to be interested in when proclaiming the “theft” of their “homeland”. Go back far enough and most of the region had essentially zero Arab population; the population was ancestral Syrian (Iranian/Persian?), Hebrew and Phoenician. Some good maps and photos here:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Middle_East#/media/File:RomanEmpire_117.svg

            Click on the “Languages” map for a slideshow.

            One interesting thing from the maps timeline… Between 1940 and 1950 British Palestine (created after WWI) became Israel and Jordan, with the bulk becoming Jordan. I wonder why the “Palestinians” aren’t interested in driving the Jordanians into the sea and reclaiming “their” “traditional” territory…? 😉

            1. The Palestinians actually tried to take over Jordan. Black September was the Jordanian response.

              An anti-Israeli terrorist organization was subsequently created with that name, and IIRC later renamed itself the PLO.

              1. The PLO was formed in 1964; King Hussein’s crackdown on PLO groups within Jordan — the event known as Black September — occurred in 1970; the terrorist group known as Black September formed after that and carried out its most infamous attack at the Munich Olympics in 1972. According to Wikipedia, the PLO originally wanted Israel wiped out and replaced with a Palestinian state, but in the Oslo Accords of 1993 (which I had forgotten about) officially recognized Israel’s right to exist within its pre-1967 borders. However, they revoked that recognition in 2018.

            2. My understanding is that Palestinian is a modernization of the word for Philistines, who’s historic ‘homeland’ comprises mostly the majority, but not all, of the Gaza Strip and some portions of Israel on the Med. They certainly didn’t own to the River Jordan or the Dead Sea.

              1. Except of course the Palestinian claim itself is not accurate, as the Philistines were not Arabs; the Arab populace of the area are descendants of the Arab-Muslim conquerors who seized it from the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire.

                Also, the original partition plan that was rejected by the Arabs provided for Jordan to be the “Palestinian” Arab State, with Israel to control not only what is now modern Israel, but the West Bank. Jerusalem itself was to have its status decided by a plebiscite, with rights of both Jews and Muslims protected. The British of course ditched this in order to give the House of Saud what is now Saudi Arabia, resulting in the Hashemites being given Jordan by the British, with the Palestinian Arabs to get an area carved out of part of the West Bank and Jordan. Israel agreed to this and established modern Israel in 1948 (which is simply the re-establishment of Israel as a nation). The Arabs rejected it and started on of their many wars to “drive the Jews into the sea”.

                The genocidal nature of that war was expressly stated, and Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, etc., adhere to that genocidal goal today, a goal accepted by large swaths of the left, including a sizeable part of the Democratic Party.

                2. The original partition plan actually would have given the Jews about half the area of pre-1967 Israel – four disconnected bits of land, the largest one in the Negev desert.

                  The 1948 boundaries represented the ceasefire line after the combined power of the Arab nations tried and failed to drive the Jews into the sea.

            3. They believe that once they steal something, evermore is it theirs. Not the other way around.

            4. Given the way the Jews intermarried with the inhabitants of Canaaan, even when they weren’t supposed to, means they probably have more DNA from the original Canaanites than anyone else.

                1. No, Jacob went back to the family estates, and married his Uncle Laban’s daughters. (And their handmaidens.) In Paddsn Aran, Mesopotamia, not Canaan.

                  (And no, WP, it is not easier and faster to reply through Jetpack. First I have to find the bleeping comment I was responding to.)

            5. They tried — it’s called Black September — but the Jordanian Army killed a zillion of them and expelled the rest to the West Bank. Which was only part of “Jordan” because it was next to what used to be “Transjordan” (across the Jordan River from British Palestine, both part of the Mandate Territory) after the various Arab states lost the 1948 war.

          4. The current Palestinian claim is that the Jews who used to live there aren’t related to the current Jews who live there, who are all frauds.

    3. Push ’em into the sea for all I care. There is no Palestine. There should be no Palestinians. Cut off the money spigot, cancel all their visas, no recognition of the “nation” or national identity, and flag ’em all as potential terrorists.

      That’s the cheap way.

      Pushing them all out at bayonet point would be the more expensive way, but probably be more permanent.

  3. :reads tweet:

    So that is why they talk about white people not having any culture, even as they appropriate it with malice aforethought.

    If something violates their theory, then they redefine away the thing, not the theory.

    1. Or, as was said much better a century ish back:

      I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what they looked like. This is not meant for nonsense; still less is it meant for the silliest sort of nonsense, which is cynicism. The human bond that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather an inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man may be inside any men. But to travel is to leave the inside and draw dangerously near the outside. So long as he thought of men in the abstract, like naked toiling figures in some classic frieze, merely as those who labour and love their children and die, he was thinking the fundamental truth about them. By going to look at their unfamiliar manners and customs he is inviting them to disguise themselves in fantastic masks and costumes. Many modern internationalists talk as if men of different nationalities had only to meet and mix and understand each other. In reality that is the moment of supreme danger—the moment when they meet. We might shiver, as at the old euphemism by which a meeting meant a duel.

      https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/27250/pg27250-images.html

  5. The Hindu’s in India used to practice Sati – burning a man’s widow alive on his funeral pyre. After the British banned the practice the Hindu priests complained about the infringement on their religion. Charles Napier, the British Governor, replied “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs!”

  6. I engaged in a furious back-and-forth with some lefty women who posted a meme about how you shouldn’t teach your daughters to be careful and thoughtful, but instead you should teach your sons not to rape. Le sigh. They were raising helpless girl bunnies to be sent out into the world. In some cultures, rape is not just accepted, but congratulated.

    Pointing this out got me called a racist, of course.

    1. I never understood the whole “teach men not to rape” thing.

      Where in modern western civilization is it taught that rape is in any way acceptable?

      I mean other than in protecting the Epstein client list and defending Islam, that is. 😛

      1. “Teach men not to rape” has the same roots as “fat acceptance” or “I should always be treated like a princess” and so on.

        It’s the feminist delusion that women are entitled to perfect lives and would have them if only men wouldn’t do “X” or refuse to do “Y”.

      2. Most of the time, the speaker has lived an astonishingly sheltered life and doesn’t know it. She takes it for granted that all cultures enshrine the ideal of protecting women, even when she mouths platitudes about rape being an act of power, not love.
        I don’t know if my hypothetical speaker also welcomes migrants, but she shouldn’t: she or someone dear to her may encounter one from a culture where he takes it for granted he may rape any woman at any time e for any reason.

      3. It’s a way for them to harangue men whom they know won’t rape (and won’t harm them) while pretending it makes them Good People.

        All signal, no hint of virtue to be seen.

      4. The people who spout that kind of stuff likely believe that men talk and laugh about it when we gather around the water cooler (or modern equivalent) when no women are around.

          1. None of the adult male conversations I’ve had since middle age ever went in the “grabbing them by the pussy” direction of Trump’s 2005 Access Hollywood tape. Maybe that’s because I don’t hang out with drugs, swingers, or weird bars. So of course, it’s about hunting, fishing, tools, home repairs, and games.

          2. None of the adult male conversations I’ve had since middle age ever went in the “grabbing them by the pussy” direction of Trump’s 2005 Access Hollywood tape. Maybe that’s because I don’t hang out with drugs, swingers, or weird bars. So of course, it’s about hunting, fishing, tools, home repairs, and games.

                1. Well, there was this Brit gal I was seeing for a few months that I dropped like a hot potato after eavesdropping a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear. Let’s see, 4 decades ago?

      5. Right? And yet things like the inherent difference in size between male and female means there will ALWAYS be rapists. We can’t make all men saints. It’s not possible.

        1. Well, we’re also not allowed to acknowledge those differences and pretend any 110 pound woman can easily defeat three 200+ pound men in hand to hand combat at the same time.

          I complain about feminism and what it’s done to men, but may God have mercy on them for what they’ve taught our daughters about life.

          1. I watch kids bristle when I point out that the average woman is weaker than the average man, especially when upper-body strength is important. Biology has a LOT to do with the role of women in history, but noooo, they don’t like hearing that.

              1. Because they’ve been taught that ‘principles’ have lo connection with reality, whether physical, economic, or consequential.

          2. I know very well that my height and my stance have saved me from a LOT fo trouble and bother. The first is genetics, but the second (walking like I’m gonna kick somebody’s ass) is learned behavior.

            I have far too many smaller friends to think otherwise.

        2. No, we can’t. but in a rational world we can make them unable to commit rape (or anything else) again.

          1. Exactly. For me, it should be forcible rape conviction == death penalty.

            “Forcible” includes taking advantage of involuntary lack of mental capacity, whether due to age, mental defect, or administration of a drug such as Rohypnol without the knowledge of the victim.

            I can hand-waggle on voluntary lack of mental capacity, so long as violence is not involved, and there is even a hint of consent being shown.

            1. To go along with that, there must also be harsh penalties for false accusations. Crying ‘Rape!’ due to morning-after regrets, for example.

              1. At a minimum, any and all legal costs and financial losses, plus hefty punitive damages.

                The same, or more, to apply to those (such as university administrators that facilitate the false accusation.)

              2. Get the low hanging fruit, first– malicious false accusations, of any crime.

                That avoids 99% of the cost, and broadens it to where it will help most people. (and avoids the usual “K, I’ll accuse of something that hasn’t got this special carveout” attack)

                  1. Again, not just ‘false accusation,’ malicious accusation.

                    It’s an existing legal standard with most of the kinks already worked out.

                    They’ve tried punishment for false accusations, it got weaponized almost immediately, so that even if you lost on a technicality or because you didn’t have as much money to throw at it as the other guy, it got treated as false rather than unproven.
                    (that’s before activists who really, really, REALLY like their lawfare start acting to take it down)

        3. But all women are saints! So why can’t we make men saints, too!?

          (also, conservative birthing persons aren’t women)

        4. They don’t want saints. They want geldings. Easily saddled and ridden as they please.

          Lol.

          1. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. —C.S. Lewis

      6. It’s a special class in PE taught right after “Men’s Health”. Didn’t your school have one?

        Sarcasm. And Dark Humor. Don’t flame me.

    2. Which, of course, you deserved for recognizing the facts. Hopefully, you learned your lesson. /sarc

  7. I’m not happy that there’s another war, but Israel didn’t start this. The Israelis have been reasonable and patient and tried to live in peace. They gave up Gaza. And it was just used to launch a monstrous attack against them. I do want peace, but the only way that will happen will be if Hamas is ashes.

    1. I’m not happy there is another war, but I’ll admit my biggest concern is neither the harshness of the Israeli response or who started it.

      My biggest concern is will the Cabal that runs Joe Biden try to use it to get their world war.

      1. Yep – they tried their damndest with Ukraine … except that no one in the USA really cares about Ukraine, except those who have been using it as their ATM, and possibly descendants of Ukrainians who skedaddled from the place over the last century or more.
        But for good and ill, Americans do care about Israel … and a lot of us carry a grudge about violent Islamic terrorism over the last few decades.

        Joetatoe’s handlers have got to be pissed, about how their plans for a profitable global war have been stymied…

        1. I care about Ukraine because I would love to see Russia go smash, thank you very much.

          The USSR was a horror and not just because they were Communists; to say that Russia’s imperial record hasn’t been quite as bad as King Leopold’s is not much of a compliment. As long as they are a unitary state they’re a danger to the entire world, not just their neighbors, and I would like to see them kneecapped, disabled, broken up, you name it. They had a chance after 1991 to buck up and become more than superficially civilized, and they threw it away for blood-soaked dreams of imperial revanchism.

          The fact that there is also a moral case for supporting a separate nation (in both senses) that has been genocided and ethnically cleansed by Russians multiple times in its history and is currently the victim of war crimes and abuses indistinguishable from Hamas’ is just icing on the cake.

          (Now, I’m sure, is where people tell me that Bucha and Izyum and a thousand liberated villages each with it’s torture basement are just MSM/Biden propaganda, and that’s where I tell you that you’re fools. Or would, if it wouldn’t upset Sarah.)

      1. A solution most (all?) of the “teach men not to rape” crowd will reject as barbaric.

        There is no pleasing those morons.

        1. There is no pleasing those morons.
          ………………

          100%

          Israelis have been reasonable and patient and tried to live in peace. They gave up Gaza.
          …………………….

          What Israel should have learned a long, long, long, time ago. Before Hitler. Before Russia. What everyone should know about bullies. No matter how small (child) or how large (entire nation groups/terrorists, witness Hamas).

          Appeasement does not work. Ever. Period.

  8. I couldn’t even make it beyond a grown man asking “Mummy, how kin wee bee beatin’ hayte, mummy?”

    Grow up and be kind, fool. And yes, everything else is a propagandistic, dangerous lie.

    1. Several people answered Elon (who, I think, was trying to provoke discussion) with, “Jesus Christ,” as in, “following Christ,” not as an oath. Good to see.

        1. As Chesterton said, the trouble with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and left untried.

        2. Nothing’s perfect. But even if you ignore Christianity’s elements that aren’t present in Islam, such as forgiveness, I suspect just getting a lot of these people out of the 24/7 brainwashing that exists in the Palestinian areas would do some of them a lot of good, and help them undo some of the damage to their minds.

      4. Unfortunately, I’m a poor example as a Christian.

        We had a missionary speak at church last year. His mission is converting those who killed his family to Christianity. That is something I could NOT do.

  9. These idiots leave out what happens if you actually study other cultures and find out what they actually believe and do. Muslims, and particularly Iran, want to bring about the end of the world. They keep telling us this, but we still believe in the various foreign relations theory things, The first step toward the ending of the world is killing the Jews. This is no secret. Kill the Jews and immanentize the eschaton. No eschaton without killing the Jews. Any questions?

    1. Which is what worries me about some on the right who are embracing Muslims as allies and good examples in the anti-groomer fight.

      Muslims don’t have allies, just like any other nation. And it isn’t just Jews they’re after.

      1. They’re like any other group with interests. They’re allies against one enemy. They might not be allies against another. The thing that a lot of people have trouble with is remembering that second part.

        1. “The enemy of my enemy, is my enemy. No more. No less. The enemy of my enemy might be an not trusted temporary ally in an endeavor. Still the enemy.” unknown author (pulled from multiple fiction but don’t remember specifically)

            1. Schlock Mercenary
              ………………….

              Not the context I’ve read or heard it. Not surprised.

          2. Yep. When they’re doing our work for us, let them. And remember who they really are. We may temporarily align on this one thing, but they do not share our goals or our culture, and will be every bit as destructive to us in their turn as the enemy we have in common.

          3. Sounds like Maxim 29 of the 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries from Schlock Mercenary: “The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more, no less.”

          4. To be scrupulously correct, the enemy of my enemy is my co-belligerent. That does not imply either friendship or alliance, no matter how much the bien-pensants wish that it did.

            Molotov said that he always added up German and Allied casualties in the same column. As far as he and Stalin were concerned, they were merely using one enemy against another.

            ‘Let’s you and him fight’ is no basis for a friendship.

      2. That’s because more and more on the right only care about “crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women.”

        I get it. I have the same temptation. I have to increasingly unplug to not give into it. I’m of an age when I’ll make the effort because that attitude being the only value was instilled into during my youth.

        Right wingers, especially male ones, half my age did not and the left tears down anyone who tries to teach that (see Jordon Peterson and Joe Rogan for examples).

        1. There comes a point where you need to stop being over backward trying to be fair, because all that does is expose your own throat for the sword.

          It is my opinion that Israel needs to go after every member of Hamas the same way they did the Nazis, and exterminate every one of them. And it doesn’t matter if they were the “service” versus the “militant” branch. Although the servicers can spend life in prison contemplating what they enabled.

          1. The servicers need to feel the same penalties. The potential servicers need to know they will have no excuse next time the issue arises. They enabled the militants.

        2. If the ‘lamentations’ are about meeting reality and discovering that they are living by lies, then the lamentations are a good step. They can still go wrong, but they open the door to seeing the truth.

        3. When faced with a murderous opponent, there is nothing virtuous about not desiring to see them crushed and hearing the lamentations of the women. But it should be done coldly, and not in passion.

          As the line in the “Warrior Song” goes, “I will take your life with a heart like arctic ice.” Emotion should not be part of it at all.

    2. There’s a fascinating book entitled The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise that shreds the “Convivencia” legend. The author looked at law codes for Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Moorish Spain, and at archaeology and other things. Guess what? The more groups got shoved together and learned about each other, the harder the walls each group built against contamination from the others. You know, like today? He also goes into where the legend arose (French Enlightenment with a dollop of later Romanticism). Fantastic book, and he does a good job of making legal history readable.

        1. Rousseau was a Typhoid Mary of evil.
          He must have been one of Screwtape’s ‘patients’.

          1. I keep saying, given a time machine I’m skipping Hitler and taking out that bastard Rousseau.

            1. Hear !!! Hear !!! On your way back to the present could you deal with Karl Marx and perhaps Herr Hegel? I’ve got a little list of philosophers who won’t be missed, they’d none of them be missed…

  10. Just a quibble, bullocks have no bollocks … that’s what makes them bullocks not bulls. Just sayin. 😜

          1. Give a man a carp, and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to pun, and he will dine on carp for the rest of his life.

            I’m taking occasions for amusement where I can find them today.

            Republica restituendae
            et
            Hamas delenda est

                  1. Of course, without the left, we’d no longer have our degenerates as “leaders” holding us back from what needed doing.

                2. Iran didn’t have any working alternative to Leftism except moonbat-crazy Islamic extremism.

                  Not every country suffers under that disadvantage.

      2. Sometimes typos just fit. I’ve had a crap morning and that made me laugh.

        Given the anger and the passion, perhaps we all ought to think of Genesis 18:32. We also might want to think about whether sowing Gaza with salt is Iran’s object here — especially given the news about how their agents have infiltrated Biden’s administration, perhaps the big guy himself.

        By all means kill the leaders, destroy their ability to make war, kill their soldiers, even eliminate Gaza. But killing women and children wholesale will not play well. Pay attention to what Israel is saying. They seem to get it.

        1. Except what evidence do you have those women won’t raise those children to do this again in a decade or two.

          Because what evidence I’ve seen is they will do just that.

          Israel has proven they will trade land for peace twice: Sinai and Gaza. There were even families uprooted from settlements twice having been moved from Sinai to Gaza and then forced out of Gaza.

          When Israel offered Arafat a peace deal based on pre-1967 borders, the demand that had been made for decades and an offer made in the aftermath of the Sinai withdrawal, Arafat demanded the UN borders of 1948 before the Jewish parts were invaded which lead to the pre-67 borders.

          Look, I’m not a fool. Much like Lincoln knowing he needed the South to act first, many Israeli leaders in 1948 wanted all of the mandate (and some more) but they were smart enough to let the Arabs act first.

          And the Arabs have, over and over and over.

          I hate the idea of killing women and children, but seven and a half decades suggest that may be the only way.

          1. If Gazan women and children are killed, it will be because they are human shields for HAMAS, who will not let them leave the building when the Israelis warn them in advance they are about to blow it up.

            1. I support Israel because they don’t do genocide, because they don’t do mass rape, because they do try to limit damage, They’re a democracy and the only place in the ME where Muslims have any liberty at all. If Israel changes that, there’s no moral difference between the two sides and I declare a plague on both their houses and walk away.

              Sorry, that’s how I see it, As soon as I hear “nits make lice” and “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.” I stop having a great deal of sympathy for the sayer, whatever the sayer’s reasons might be.

              Think and come back to the the why of this atrocity. If you really want to end Israel and see the Jews exterminated, which is what Iran wants, then by all means you want to see Israel exterminate the Palestinians. At this point, none of the Arab governments seem to want anything to do with this, quite the contrary since Iran is Shia and Persian not Sunni and Arab, Start wholesale slaughtering Arab Sunni Muslims and the picture will change. Add the Obama wing of the Democrats party and the corruption and ….. things get bad, very bad.

              1. Nobody said “nits make lice.”

                The gal pointed out that when someone is bombing YOU from the top of a daycare, where you are holding the women and children hostage, the moral wrong is theirs.

                Not you for shooting back.

                1. “Every male of military age is right below this post and implied in several others. Kill them all, is right below that. Once you start killing women and children by policy, well that’s nits make lice,

                  What I’m asking is that people THINK. What does Iran, and it’s all about Iran, want. They want to bring on the second coming and their holy book says the way to do that is to kill all the Jews. They keep telling us that, perhaps we might want to start believing them.

                  Killing a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand Israelis doesn’t get all the Jews killed. Killing a few babies or a few grandmothers messily on television doesn’t get all the Jews killed. Raping young women and parading their broken bodies through the streets doesn’t get all the Jews killed. The Jews committing genocide on the Palestinians could well get all the Jews killed.

                  Israel is simply not powerful enough to exterminate the Palestinians and get away with it and this is all about goading Israel to try, thereby splitting up the tacit co-belligerency between the Arabs and the Israelis around Iran. Even the US under a non quisling government would have difficulty supporting Israel should they try that. The current crowd, fuggetaboutit. If Israel loses the moral high ground in the US they are finished.

                  The Israeli authorities have been very careful. Very careful. Maybe they know something and are able to look past the red mist. Ask yourself why Netanyahu told the Palis to leave Gaza. He knows that Israel MUST maintain the moral high ground since there are many who would take any slip as an excuse to see Israel ended and the Jews driven into the sea.

                  1. “Israel MUST maintain the moral high ground”

                    So they can die without offending the woke??? The hell with that noise. The woke see it as a win either way. Just like they don’t care if you or I die because we refused to treat them as they will assuredly treat us.

                    1. Sigh. You’re an impossible person, and not in a good way. You never argue in good faith. I’ve been on the wrong side of your pettifogging BS myself and I’ve seen too many people go down that rabbit hole. I don’t need tea leaves to identify what your next move will be, it’s all so predictable.

                    2. No, I argue in ways you don’t agree with.

                      There’s a difference. And it doesn’t matter if you don’t agree. I’ll say what I have to say, and the rest is up to you. If SARAH disagrees, she can say so, and invite me to leave.

                    3. It’s not about the woke, It’s real politic, I really don’t care morally or ethically if Israel bombs Gaza back into the Stone Age and sows the ground with salt. it’s no more than they deserve. The problem is that Israel doesn’t have the power to do that and get away with it.

                      This is the real world. Think.

                      I’m going away now since I seem to be going from being angry and outraged at Hamas to getting into flame wars with strangers on the internet.

                    4. I think everyone is on edge. I’ve pulled my fingers a couple of times.
                      And I’m not sure you’re right. Something slipped. something big. I’m seeing reasonable people say the unsayable suddenly. It’s– terrifying in a way.
                      Worse, I don’t think the idiots — not just the Ham-ass, but all the stupid idiots are going to do the indefensible elsewhere. maybe even here — and that will bring hell.
                      May G-d have mercy on all of us.
                      And you guys, stop fighting.

                    5. I think everyone is on edge.

                      The last several years have been everyone in the world realizing that their own governments are far more unjust and tyrannical than they’d ever thought possible, and that their cultures are being suborned by hostile ideologies that are even more unjust and tyrannical than that.

                      And most people see absolutely nothing they can do to escape or remedy the situation.

                      That’s the kind circumstance that makes people want to see a thorough and righteous beatdown executed on someone. Anyone, quite frankly.

                      If Israel does go “Caedete eos” on the Palestinians, that might just provide enough emotional catharsis to calm everybody down for a year or so.

                      Which might be a valuable service that the Palestinians could provide to the world.
                      Or it might key up more people and give the tyrants a chance to regroup.

                      Hard to say.

                  2. The comment you ACTUALLY RESPONDED TO said:

                    Paula Weiss says:October 9, 2023 at 1:53 pm
                    If Gazan women and children are killed, it will be because they are human shields for HAMAS, who will not let them leave the building when the Israelis warn them in advance they are about to blow it up.

                    The comment related to all military age men was:
                    clairk says:October 9, 2023 at 1:56 pm
                    I would suggest:

                    No numerical limit.

                    Every military aged male

                    Anyone seen with a weapon.

                    -in a completely different thread.

                    You want to take some kind of bold stand, try not throwing an off the wall accusation at someone who is NOT EVEN INVOLVED IN YOUR TEA-LEAF READING OF IMPLICATIONS.

                    2. My post ended up under the wrong heading so you can attack me for that too.

                      Hey, buttercup, how about you whine a bit more about being “attacked” for falsely accusing a lady of promoting genocide for being realistic about human shields.

                      THAT is sure to work.

                  3. Allowing savages to savage with impunity while twisting your sense of morals into a pretzel is anything but the moral high ground.

                    Which is why I think most of the UN needs to be dropped into Gaza before the next artillery barrage.

                  4. I think you fail to understand the nature of the problem. Israel faces genocide. They really do mean to enslave and exterminate the jews. Hamas in particular obeys no law or custom of war. Thus it is necessary to reprise to dissuade further atrocity. Hopefully dissuade hamas. If not, then dissuade whomever next might go genocidal.

                    By your plan, either the war is endless, or it exterminates the jews.

                    No.

                    Hamas started this. They can end this by quitting and running like hell. If they won’t, then Israel gets to do whatever it takes to dissuade further atrocities. Reprisal is required, by law and custom of civilized war.

                    And they better figure it out soon.

                    Please avoid the tiresome trite moral equivalence crap. It doesn’t fly.

                2. Bombing daycares, schools, hospitals, religious houses of worship are against the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war. They’re also court martial offenses.

                  HOWEVER, housing enemy combatants, ammunition, or running command and control from those structures, as well as painting a Red Cross/Red Crescent on top of a military target, are also violations of the Geneva Conventions that negate any protections of those structures.

                  Considering how much Muslims love suicide bombings, and would gladly sacrifice their own children in a daycare center if it meant they could take out a dozen infidels, it’s not a good strategy to try saving all the innocents they have hostage. Life isn’t a Wonder Woman movie.

                  1. Worse– if it becomes known that you will hold fire if you think they have hostages, even their own held hostage, then YOU JUST MADE TAKING HOSTAGES THE SMART IDEA.

                    By punishing Israel for shooting back when there could be hostages, one becomes complicit in encouraging the taking of hostages.

                    1. Thus why reprisal is required.

                      There is absolutely no law effective in war. Only warriors can enforce some sort of less than totality on war. Through reprisal.

                      What are you going to do to the enemy to enforce that writ? Sue them? Call the cops? You and what army, bub?

                      Oh, right. That reprising army. Ok. Maybe now we can stop using girls as shields and playthings? No? How about (horror) now?

                      Nothing else works. Not in reality.

        3. I’ve said elsewhere that what should be done is roll the bulldozers in right after the infantry and level everything all the way to the shore.The palestinians can learn to swim. They’ve tried limited war. They’ve tried land-for-peace. They end up in the same predicament.

          Alternatively, give them all a plane ride to the country of their choice. If THAT country doesn’t want them, they still get disembarked. It matters not to me if they get off while the plane is stopped on the ground, or doing 400 knots at 30K feet.

  11. For 20+ years, since the Intifada of the late 90s/early 00s started I’ve had a way that Israel could end terrorist attacks from Palestinians: executing 100 (or 1,000) Palestinians for every Israeli killed by a terrorist.

    And limit the executions to children and women of child bearing age.

    In a decade it would attacks either by people being afraid of the cost or reducing the population to old people with no next generation.

    I knew it was monstrous on the level of Stalin or Pol Pot. I rarely suggested it and felt shame in doing so.

    I’ve watched a few videos since Saturday.

    I now fear it would be insufficient because even those old men and women would continue the attacks until every Palestinian or every Israeli is dead.

    If the only way to stop genocide against your people is to genocide those against you as horrific as the two bad choices are, annihilation of you and yours or annihilation of them, are I am more likely to condemn those who choose the former over the latter. Doing the former not only eliminates you but leaves those who are willing to celebrate wiping out others to move onto their next target.

    Or, to use my favorite apocryphal quote, “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.”

      1. Indeed and I fear that this attack indicates that at least the Shia portion of Islam and its various cats paws (no offense intended to our feline friends or their little soft paws) have decided that the west doesn’t have the guts to write 1×10^9 in the Islamic losses column and its time to roll the dice as they don’t want a reasonable solution and have rejected the “Golden Hour” of the Third Conjecture. Either that or they believe that this will initiate the coming of the 12th Imam and the completion of their eschatological worldview. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. Part of me wonders if Iran is holding one (or more) preliminary IRBM(s) with crude warhead to lob at Israel and is waiting for the retaliatory attack against Hamas as a pretext though the idiot mullahs in charge don’t usually seem to need a pretext. This strikes me as a rather foolish move as I believe Israel has Improved Patriots as well as THAAD/AN-TPY2 and their own Arrow anti missiles so unless Iran has LOTS of missiles to overwhelm the defense few if any would make it through. Israel also are “thought” to have Nuclear forces of their own (and have likely had some since before the Yom Kippur war in 1973). Apparently the Iranians have not realized that in most cases Allah is on the side with the larger artillery. My problem is I am attempting a rational analysis of an irrational uncivilized opponent. It’s like trying to predict what Ming the Merciless or Blofeld is going to do except without the preliminary monologue…I do not expect this to go well no matter what path it goes down.

      2. Pretty much. Mine is the pre-nuke unthinkably monstrous version.

        His is the post-nuke necessary but still monstrous version.

    4. The “who” of targeting is essential. A random 100 or 1000 “palestinians” Tends top help thei leaders such as Hamas.

      Target the order giving leaders first. Brutally.
      Target their immediate family, and larger tribe.

      When families and tribes see -those- being successfully targeted for extinction, they will tend to slap the snot out of anyone of theirs yelling slogans a little too loud.

      The key to reprisal is it has to hurt and horrify the enemy. Otherwise the response is “so?”. When the leaders of Hamas and who they value are subject to sudden extinction, those who can be turned aside will. Those who cant will server as object lessons to others who can.

      Yup. Savage butchery has a place. -Selective- targeted butchery is often more effective. But do not allow them to use your own squeamishness against you.

      Else they win and they will win again and again. because -you- granted them victory. Knock it off.

  12. Oh, and this:

    You hate what you don’t understand, what you don’t personally relate to.

    Does anyone who had interacted me with think I don’t understand hate and the desire to just kill all I dislike? Does anyone who had interacted with think I don’t relate to wanting to solve things with violence?

    So, by this clown boat’s standards I should understand and embrace Hamas.

    I don’t, because I understand those are not desires that should be let out in the real world. Yes, I’d done work to understand how to process them without turning it into self loathing over the past year, but it is a mindset I understand, have, and don’t admire.

    Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt, not kumbaya.

    1. I’ve read the Koran several times, in different translations. I watch what followers of religions actually do, the different factions. I understand the tradition of abrogation of early Koranic verses. I’ve read the Hadith on the sword verses. I suspect I have a better grasp of the philosophy behind Hamas, Hezbollah, and a couple other groups than Mr. Kumbayah does. It makes me like them less.

      1. I haven’t read the Koran or the Hadiths, but I’ve studied Islamic history — military, political, and intellectual — and while I tend to think all religions are more or less delusional I think that Islam (and the culture it took from 7th-century Arabia Deserta and propagated all over) is by far the worst of all the world religions. By far. For both its adherents and its neighbors.

    2. A way of phrasing it that Mr. Arnaud Bertrand might have an easier time of understanding –

      I hate the Nazis because I’ve read about them, and come to understand them. And the more I read and understand about them, the more I hate them.

    3. Star Trek

      Yarnek announces that the experiment is over. He concludes that there is nothing different between good and evil because the methods used to fight each other are the same. Kirk explains that the similar methods of how the two fight each other does not define them as the same since Yarnek set the conditions. What defines them is the things for which each of them fight – Kirk and Spock were fighting for the survival of the Enterprise; the others fought only for power.
      ………………….
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Savage_Curtain
      ………………….

      horrific as the two bad choices are, annihilation of you and yours or annihilation of them, are I am more likely to condemn those who choose the former over the latter. Doing the former not only eliminates you but leaves those who are willing to celebrate wiping out others to move onto their next target.
      …………………

      ^^This^^ is what is being fought. By their own book they want me and mine eliminated. By any other standard, I have the right to protest that with more than equal force to ensure me and mine’s survival.

  14. Heck, most of the nobility was related to each other across Europe. Which did not stand in the way of turning Europe into one vast abattoir.

    How much of that related nobility lost family in that abattoir? Serious question. I know of no direct family of monarchs who did, but I’m ignorant of losses at second degree and on.

    Yes, the Tsar and his family died as a consequence of the war, but not in combat.

    For example, Marie of Edinburgh was a big influence on getting her husband Ferdinand I, King of Romania, to join the Allies. None of their children died because of the war (their youngest dies during the war at 3 due of typhoid fever).

    I think the separation from the abattoir is a big reason it happened. It is happening now with our current government in the US.

    1. Joe and Jill having a BBQ yesterday with live music for “senior executive staff,” exemplifies that.

    2. The monarchs may not have lost anyone, but the nobility and upper officer corps did. The Kaiser had a son in the army. There was at least some risk assumed by the upper classes.

      Unlike now, with our perfumed princes.

    3. A lot of them to the second degree. European nobility were among the first to enlist. The Red Baron had English cousins, and had done the grand tour. His puppy was from a litter divided with his English cousins.

      1. The nobility was expected to fight in the wars. Most had been through military training and were among the officers of the military establishment. Many, if not most, of their ancestors were granted patents of nobility because of military service in which they distinguished themselves.

        1. nobility was expected to fight in the wars.
          ………………..

          Not only expected to fight in the wars, but bring entire companies of knights and tenants, to fill the ranks.

          1. Not in WWI, they weren’t. But as Orwell grudgingly admitted:

            ‘One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed. Several dukes, earls and what nots were killed in the recent campaign in Flanders. That could not happen if these people were the cynical scoundrels that they are sometimes declared to be.’

    4. Prince Maurice was the grandson of Victoria, through Princess Beatrice. He was killed in action during the First Battle of Ypres. His brother, Alexander (later Montbatten), was apparently wounded in France.

      As for the King’s sons –

      Edward was the heir. He was allowed to serve in the military, but was not allowed to go to France with his unit. Albert, later George VI, was on the HMS Collingwood during Jutland, and was apparently commended. He spent the battle commanding one of the turrets on the battleship. The ship was on the front line during the battle, and dodged a torpedo attack while also scoring at least one hit on the German BC Derflinger.

      The attitude toward the heir was likely identical throughout Europe, as the heir’s role was critical. But I don’t know how the other European countries treated their own “spares” and near-relatives, though.

      1. One of Victoria’s grandsons became a German nobleman having been forced by Victoria to assume the Duchy from which Albert came. He was put through military training by Wilhelm and served as a German officer in WW1. He suffered under a law dealing with “enemy peers” and marched at a royal funeral in German uniform as he had been denied any legal attachments to Britain as a result of the law.

  15. Tom Freidman in The World Is Flat, had that sort of facile outlook: here are all these underemployed Arab young men. Obviously, get those young men a good education and good jobs and they’d forget all that nonsense. Simple.
    I had to write a review of that book. I was not kind to Friedman.

    1. It’s the same thing with China. Standard NYT editorial or writing from various Harvard economics “laureates”. “All the CCP has to do is act more like Europe and all China’s economic problems will be fixed.” Umm …. Well no actually and ummm Communism. Maybe they actually believe in Communism or … ummm.. just in power.

      Our “elites” believe in nothing and believe that their belief in nothing is universal. I know, but they’re really not that bright.

      If a man tells you he’s going to kill you, believe him.

        1. Perhaps the latter, but In their heart of hearts they know they’re not superior. Insecurity is at the bottom of many pathologies.

          1. No. In their heart of hearts they are absolutely convinced that they are superior, and they are howlingly angry at the world for not making them the absolute rulers that they ought to be by right.

            To recognize that they are not superior would require them to have a standard grounded in reality; and reality is the one thing that they never look to for counsel.

          2. Insecurity because of an offended superiority complex is how I would characterize it.

            “I am clearly of the best people/religion/etc, and yet I am not at the top of society as I should be. It MUST be because of the thieving Other who holds down all true men of my race/religion/ethnicity.”

            It’s bad enough when it’s individuals. When it’s entire groups of people and cultures, it’s nasty.

      2. All the CCP has to do…

        Arguments of this form should be considered incomplete – why is this obvious simplification not more widely accepted? Has no one thought of it? Unlikely. A complete argument would attempt to address complications/objections.

        And in this case, the CCP imitating European socialists by way of the USSR, is part of the problem.

        1. As soon as anybody addresses a difficult problem with the words ‘All ya gotta do is…’ – you are well advised to ignore whatever follows, and seek no more counsel from that person.

            1. Pray pardon. I should not use such crude language in this esteemed and august forum, so instead of ‘asshole’ please read ‘Fred.’

              Thank you.

      3. WSJ just announced Country Garden has admitted it can’t pay off all its international debt. Another one bites the dust.

    2. The worst among them have had a good education and a good job. They gave them all up to fight the “dirty” Jews.

  18. The Palestinians don’t want to be ‘Educated!’ They’re doing exactly what they want to do. Trying to appease them will only get you more of the same.
    ———————————
    Negotiating with an enemy that can’t be trusted is just plain stupid.

  19. Purify Gaza, Illuminate their ability to flee, bomb everything flat, then Napalm and Whiskey Pete the rubble until nothing moves. Lather, Rinse, Repeat as needed. Build a Pyramid out of the skulls and call it Peace.

          1. What’s that thing the left likes to say? “If it saves only one life!” Well, I think some rooftop Koreans would have saved at least one.

        1. Until then, we can force breaks in higher level violence by making it too expensive. Sure, it’s whack a mole, but that particular mole ceases to be troublesome.

  20. Having grown up in an alien culture (Mexico) I can tell you that as much as I admire Mexico and Mexicans there are aspects of their culture that I abhor. Age on consent 12, not that consent is particularly necessary in any event. Wildly thievish. Racist to a T. Endemic violence. I welcome them to the US so long as they make our culture their own. I am not a racist (other than I favor good ol’ homo sap over all others), but I am a cultural imperialist.

    Hamas has brought into the open an issue largely ignored for the last 10 years: Islam is not compatible with Western civilization. One way to manage this would be strong boundaries, not happening in Clown World. Another is war. They know this and tell us so all the time and are ignored by the Clown “elite” and their cult followers. Western civ is founded on Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christian religion, all under assault by Marxists.

    Nowadays when I think of cultural diversity I think of Vikings. The blood eagle is diverse. Would you like to volunteer to try it?

  21. Know your enemy and yourself, and you can win every battle.

    Also, remember that war tends to homogenize the combatants. They become more and more like each other.

    So choose ones enemy wisely.

  24. Submitted for your ripping it to shreds;

    “This was not planned in Iran, though they did relay messages. No, this was planned in Moscow and Peking. Biden has done the will of Peking quite well, this smells of Sun Tzu not the Mullah’s. Just at a time when all the USA’s stock piles are at there lowest a major strike against Israel occurs, Coincidence? This is Moscow’s revenge against the west for supporting Ukraine. Helped along by the senile pedophile in the white house and the blob that put him there doing China’s bidding. Pray for Israel and say a prayer for all of us.”

      2. The senile pedophile in the White House definitely helped – where do you think the $6B to Iran went? – but I doubt Xi and Putin planned this. At most they probably gave tacit approval since it would further distract the West.

        1. Oh, that Iran had a hand in this, even if only in funding it it, I don’t doubt. But that Putin and Xi had a hand in it beyond perhaps not caring I would need evidence to be convinced.

          1. Hamas has deep attachments to Russia. Their training was done by Russia, with many of them actually trained in Russia. It has been reported the attack was egged on by Putin to provide a diversion from his activities in Ukraine.

            I don not know the source which is why I phrased my post in the manner I did. However, it is entirely plausible because of what Putin is.

            1. Well ……

              I sure haven’t heard or read “Ukraine” today or yesterday. If not the intent. That is the result.

          2. Iran has a hand in this… up to the shoulder.
            I will NOT shed any tear if the Iran regime has an amputation to match.
            I feel bad for the Iranian people… but then, they’ve been suffering since 1979.

        2. Our illustrious Lefty town administrator is fond of saying, “Money is fungible.” (Which means once you have the cash in hand, you can spend it on anything you want, and screw any promises made earlier.) He understands that principle. I don’t think anyone in the Biden Administration does, beyond making sure the Big Guy gets his 10%.

          1. If it’s not fungible, it’s not very useful as money. Practically the defining quality of money – what else can I get for it? Often missed by the ‘intrinsic value’ crowd.

    2. Iran is quite capable of planning jihadi conquest. It is central to their faith.

      The idea that they need, or want, Russian guidance is absurd. They will accept useful gear, trainers, and the occasional useful idiot. But have no illusion that the Mad Mullahs are not driving this.

    3. The problem is that (to a greater extent than Iran), Russia and China are governed by rational actors who don’t have a death wish. The Ayatollahs sincerely believe that a global war will being about the return of Issa bin Maryam (Jesus). I remember when Achmadinijad [sp] was talking about how the 12th Imam was trying to return from occultation (hiding) and that the US needed to be smashed in order to make that possible. He was deadly serious. Scared the spit out of me. Happily, a more moderate faction of the religious leadership in Iran opted to wait, since the signs and portents weren’t quite right yet.

      2. “The portents” weren’t deemed right because Iran had not achieved the creation of nuclear weapons yet. With the help of Team ObamaBiden though, they have gotten most of the way their, if they do not already have nukes. A big concern I have is that Iran was willing to facilitate this large scale attack by Hamas precisely because they now have nukes are seeking an opportunity to use them.

        1. Cardshark Looks like you came to this conclusion before I did (earlier in the comments as viewed, after in time order). this is seriously NOT good…

  25. Also (and please not that I am NOT VICTIM-BLAMING, just struggling to understand), I can’t fathom why the seemingly-overwhelming majority of Jews will scream “NEVER AGAIN!” until the cows come home and then turn around and lambast the very thought of civilian gun ownership or armed self-defense.

    To the best of my understanding, Israel has EXTREMELY restrictive gun laws. Only active-duty military and police can have ready access to firearms; reservists aren’t allowed to keep their weapons in their homes or on their person anymore (I think they used to be able to, but apparently no more). IF you can get a gun permit (and personal-protection is not a valid reason), then you are restricted to ONE handgun, ZERO long guns, and no more than 50 rounds of ammo at a time (for those who are unfamiliar, 50 rounds is a single box of pistol ammo). And good luck getting a carry permit.

    I’m not naïve or stupid enough to think that armed civilians would have stopped what was happening cold right at the start, but it would at the very least slowed Hamas down vs. murdering and raping and pillaging their way across the country without resistance, which from what I can see they are STILL doing three days in to this nightmare. Hell, a couple of guys on rooftops armed with shotguns and stoked with turkey or waterfowl loads could have probably brought down at least some of those armed paragliders (speaking of which: Hamas, the James Bond franchise called, they want their gimmick back).

    1. Unfortunately Israel was formed when “Socialism is the future”. And “the opposite of fascism is socialism.” It’s been rowing back from that ever since. but it’s a LONG process.

      1. But… but… SPROING!

        [NOTE: that sound you heard was Raptor’s brain breaking when attempting to perform the mental gymnastics necessary to determine that Socialism is the opposite of/solution to National Socialists].

        1. Sigh. Europe. After WWII. I too was sold this bill of goods. I looked at it suspiciously from the beginning, but can’t say I fought it THAT hard to begin with. You know, you’re a kid. You believe your elders.

          1. Well, yeah. Hell, I bought leftist dogma for a while (thank God Mom bought me a copy of Bill O’Reilly’s “Culture Warrior”), but I was a dumb high school student. These were freakin’ adults who came up with that idiocy.

            1. World war two. And the attitudes in intellectuals before. As a minority barred from land ownership most countries, Jews were mostly intellectuals. it follows.

              1. How can so many ‘intellectuals’ be so f*king stupid?
                ———————————
                It takes a LOT of Education to make them that stupid.

                1. I wish I knew. Little Brother is an intellectual (in the sciences, so not as bad, but still…) and I can’t fathom how he can simultaneously be so staggeringly intelligent and dumber than a bag of hammers.

          2. I know that all too well. Alas, my elders taught history that contained a large component of untruth.

        2. sound you heard was Raptor’s brain breaking when attempting to perform the mental gymnastics necessary to determine that Socialism is the opposite of/solution to National Socialists
          ……………….

          Raptor is not alone. Communism is Socialism, is National Socialism. Just because the two fought each other in WWII doesn’t make them different. Just as Evil.

          1. Not QUITE the same. National socialism was mostly German, though other nations adopted their own. International socialism/communism is RUSSIAN nationalism. And therefore even stupider/less functional/more paranoid.
            Which takes effort.

            1. 20th-century “Marxism” in the USSR: Means of production owned by the state, controlled by a few Party men who get rich while the working man suffers, and massive Russian chauvinism.

              20th-century National Socialism in Germany: Means of production owned by a few men who get rich while the working man suffers but ultimately controlled by the state, and massive German chauvinism.

              The clauses shift, but the story remains the same.

              1. I mean, they are mostly the same. Just not absolutely the same.
                I wasn’t defending either. I think we should have taught the kids what was wrong with both for almost 100 years now. Instead, we allowed pudding heads to teach them communism was being nice and everyone who wasn’t greedy was a communist.
                I don’t want to have list of people who need to be hit on the head with a shovel. I just feel like I should.

                    1. Fascism is the umbrella. As Mussolini put it,

                      “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”

                      That takes in all forms of socialism.

            2. Not QUITE the same.
              ……………

              National or International socialism wants me and mine dead, and you and yours dead, or at best, ground under their boots slavery. Can’t see the difference. I do understand there are differences. Any other difference is too minuscule to matter.

              2. The only difference I’m aware of is that fascist governments are usually able to at least keep their own people fed, versus communism, where famine is the common lot. That said, the only answer I have to “pick your side in this struggle” is NO. I’ve got two middle fingers, one for each of them.

                1. But national socialists — other than the Nazis which were their own shit show — still impoverish their people little by little, till the people suffer a great deal.

                  1. Doing anything in Germany after the depression and raiding of their country post WWI would have seemed like a major improvement. Putting the nation in a wartime industrial mode certainly was a stimulus for workers. Providing scapegoats for all the problems was the same kind of smoke and mirrors and FUD we see our government subjecting us to today. Looking at both WWII Germany, and the U.S. today, and there are way too many parallels with how our federal government is behaving.

                    1. No, it’s still pre-WW2 Germany here. Why, the Demokrats are still trying to set the Reichstag Fire! All they’ve managed so far are a few Reichstag Fizzles. They’re not nearly ready for their Krystallnacht.

                      They’re trying to run the Nazi playbook, but they keep screwing it up. I guess they’re even stupider than Nazis.

            3. Technically, it’s not Russian nationalism, it’s Russian imperialism. It’s just that Russia’s nationalism, its sense of itself as a nation (aka a “people”), seems to necessarily include their conquest and domination of other nations.

              1. Calling Russia a Federation is not proper. Russia is a unitary state, not a federation. Russia is a proper empire, and empires always fall. It has fallen partially, but Putin’s war is making things harder to hold together. From what happened in Transcaucasia last month, Putin is starting to lose his grip as his influence seems to be fading. He not only did not help Armenia, but he betrayed Armenia and supported Azerbaijan instead.

                Other “nationalities” seem to restive as well.

          2. I’ve used the metaphor of two criminal gangs fighting over turf to point out the “…but they fought the NAZIS!” bleat to be… not very convincing.

            Seems to piss the Antifa types off, so I may keep using it.

          3. “That which opposes International (Soviet) Socialism is Fascism.”

            (Soviet) Textbook definition of Fascism, for all you fascists out there who do not understand. (grin)

            Trotsky was thus Fascist.

        3. That’s what I was taught in school in the 60’s/70’s
          Nazi’s & Fascists are far right wing. Communists are far left wing. They are natural enemies.

          Of course once you examine what countries with those named government types did instead of what the ivory tower folk theorized that all falls apart.

          But part of being a leftist is the ability to fervently believe any number of mutually incompatible things at once so I still see people divide the totalitarians the way I was taught it.

          2. They are natural enemies. They recruit from the same population so every Communist is a loss to Nazis, and vice versa. Unless you succeed in recruiting from the other party, which is harder.

        4. Wouldn’t it be AMAZING to see folks with the sense of 1913….
          AND how they might act if fully cognizant of POST-1913 as this timeline went. I cannot say it would surely be better… but I doubt ALL decisions would remain as we know them.

          2. I have a fantasy of kidnapping the crowned heads of Europe, their general staffs and chief ministers, in 1912, and taking them on a Tragical History Tour.

    2. Because Israel is a mid-left marx-adjacent mess. Their “conservative” Likud party is about central US Donk. Maybe not even that.

      Kibbutz is “collective farm”. The Soviet escapees to Israel were not necessarily anti-Communist. Plenty were Trotskyites. Some were sent there as Soviet evangelicals.

      They are California at best. They only look good compared to the grotesque disfunction of their neighbors.

      Their own government has bloodyvhands from disarming their civilians in fine Leftroid fashion. If those folks had been armed, Hamas would already be half dead.

      Think about how f#####g left-nuts they have to be to still vote lefty/gun-control, surrounded by islamifascists that venerate frikkin Hitler.

      Part of me wants to shout “what the f### did you idiots expect? Did you plan to just waltz into the showers again?”

      But we can deal with that stupidity after we smite the islamonazis.

    3. Thank-you, this is a question we were asking in Iowa. How can people take videos from three stories up and not get out a gun and shoot the intruders? We had rifles with scopes for hunting deer in Idaho and pheasant and whitetail guns since we moved to Iowa (all sadly lost in our housefire). I had heard that Israeli guns were locked up at the local police station? Glad I live in a Constitutional carry state, probably why I feel safe.

      1. Since Oregon doesn’t have concealed carry reciprocity with other states, we are trying to figure out what concealed carry permit we need to carry in most states (in addition to the Oregon concealed carry). Used to be the Utah concealed carry. But now that states have gone to constitutional carry, including Utah. Now what? Or does constitutional carry apply to citizen visitors from other states? Iowa is not on our list, but Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming, are. (Already know the answer for CA, WA, or Canada. Not good.)

        We didn’t have a house fire. We went canoeing and the canoe tipped over. (Do you know how difficult it is to right side canoes after they tip over when the water is over your head? (Or why I always failed the ’60s GSA “tippy canoe” test.) Let alone save all the items that fell in the process.)

        1. Go out to You Tube and look up Andrew Branca Law of Self Defense. He’s a practicing self-defense attorney and he answers questions like that.

          1. Oregon has an open Constitutional carry. Just not concealed carry, unless heading to the shooting range or hunting/fishing. Even then has to be *secured. Wildland recreation, like hiking/backpacking, ???. Not legal for the USFS field personnel to carry unless deputized, take that for what it is worth. Although during the high rattlesnake and black bear, year, the non-temp staff did open carry – mid-late-’70s. Now I think they are all deputized, and have been since at least mid-’80s.

            (*) Not sure how Secured Concealed guns are readily available for defense. Just not visionary enough, I guess.

        3. Technically, Oregon does have such because issuance of a carry concealed permit is an official act of a state and other states must recognize such. It is why I can marry a woman in Florida, but and still married when we move to Alaska, or a Maine driver’s license is accepted in Arizona.

          2. Except as far as I know no one has ever sued for Full Faith and Credit with respect to the Second amendment. Try driving though New Jersey or Massachusetts with a long gun on the way to hunt in say NH or VT and get stopped by State Troopers. Certainly there were some issues like that in NJ, but I don’t know if it ever made it to the Supreme Court post Bruen.

            1. It has not been. And a lot of 2A activists were surprised it didn’t when gay marriage first became a thing. I suspect that’s why Obergefell used Privileges and Immunities rather than Full Faith and Credit.

              1. Another not reciprocated, by Oregon, is common law marriage. Or wasn’t. Marriage certificate as issued by any state county (whether religious or magistrate performed) is. But not common law marriage. Oregon does (again, did not?) recognize common law marriage. So the gay marriage reciprocity problem did not surprise me at all.

          1. We were looking at Utah. So that is probably our best bet.

            We carry in National Parks, and between.

      2. A lot of folks in Israel went, overnight, from being “that crazy gun-nut” to “you know, he’s right, I wish I’d had a rifle, not a camera.”

        1. I’m seeing reports they are officially changing their gun control policy, effective immediately, in response to this.

          This may be what it takes to clean out that part of the old soft-socialist model there.

          1. It appears they have slightly expanded the number of people who are able to get gun permits and streamlined the process by switching from an in person interview to a phone interview. Permits are still mostly limited to a subset of military veterans, based on details of past military training and deployments.

            1. Based on what I read (and as mentioned in my comment that’s awaiting moderation because I misspelled my name again), it makes the process slightly less onerous if you already qualify for a gun permit. Also, if you previously had a permit, but it lapsed for some reason, you can now reapply.

              It’s better, but only a little.

              1. Yeah, even with the current expansion of eligibility, their system sounds almost as restrictive as New Jersey.

                Fifty some years ago I had a roommate who was planning to move to what he described as a heavily armed border Kibbutz. This would have been before the Yom Kippur war. I don’t know what ever happened to him. Nor do I know the political details of how Israeli gun laws have developed. They clearly would have been better off with more guns in civilian hands these last few days.

          2. I saw an article over at Truth About Guns on this (link at Insty). After reading through it, though, it doesn’t appear to do much to spread guns across the general populace. Instead, it merely makes it so that if you already qualify for a gun, you only need to wait a week for your permit. And if you previously let your permit lapse, you can get it renewed.

            On another note, Insty also has s link up to a story of a kibbutz that survived. Fifteen men held off Hamas for six hours until the army arrived. Unfortunately, two of the defenders were killed (a terrorist surprised both of them from behind).

              1. Unfortunately, this particular kibbutz was the exception. The vast majority of them that were attacked were overrun.

          1. I’m still horrified that after the mess when Israel got started, they ever DID put in gun control.
            Even if it was just “had to have carried a weapon during their military service” as a qualifier, it would be better than disarmed with homicidal maniacs next door.

      3. You are free, and thus fail to understand the unfree mind. We do not ponder how best to demand the King should act on our behalf. We ponder just how much we can get away with before someone with a badge ends our fun.

        And Americans are descended from some of the most bloodthirsty savages ever to choose civilization. Thus an almost gut-level “kill them all” whispers in our ear.

        1. The American/USAian reply “Nuke them ALL and be DONE” seems odd to Others.. but American do NOT want to “manage” a problem. They want to MAKE THE PROBLEM CEASE TO BE. And thus, nuking the lot? Well, it SOLVES the problem.

          Any SANE foe will take that into account.

          We are NOT dealing with sane folks.

    4. Married couple, both IDF officers and therefore authorized to possess weapons, saved the lives of their two 10-month-old children by taking out seven savages at the cost of their own lives:

      Israel has belatedly relaxed their gun control laws, but the horse is already out of the barn.

  26. There is no Palestinian culture. There is no Palestinian nation.
    There is no Palestinian people.

    There are a bunch of Arabs who came to the Holy Land when it was taken over by Britain in WWI. Their roots were in Egypt and Syria, not the nation known today as Israel. They came because the British were wealthier than the Ottoman Empire that had previously occupied the area.

    And that area was, under the Ottomans, very lightly inhabited. Overgrazing had made the Promised Land virtually uninhabitable. It’s like talking about who owns the Sahara Desert now.

    While the British controlled the area, Zionist Jews also moved in. Unlike the Arabs, they actually reclaimed the land and made it fertile once more.

    The British evacuated the area in 1947 without leaving even a caretaker government. By that time, most of the land was being farmed by the Jews. The Arabs, who had made no effort to better their surroundings, tried to steal the Jewish land and failed miserably.

    So the idea that there is some “Palestinian” nation with roots in the area is a lie.

    And that impacts the way they act. Arab culture in, say, Iraq is a shitty culture, but at least it is a culture. People can be connected to their ancestors who lived in the area for centuries.

    Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank have no connection to their past, and no memory of any of them ever doing anything worthwhile. That is why hatred is so central to their activities. It is the only unifying force. And it affects everything they do, not just their dealings with Israel. In “Palestinian” controlled territory, they don’t even love their own children. They consider them useful only as suicide bombers and as sex slaves.

    Israel should at the very least expel all Arabs from Gaza. And not with kid gloves either. I’m talking Rome on Carthage shit.

    1. One correction, Zionist Jews came and were tolerated (mostly) during the Ottoman period.

      One reason the boundary between Jewish and Arab areas in the mandate was called “the Green line” is the Jewish lands had been restored by hard work over a couple of generations which had not happened in Arab areas.

      1. A lot of Jews bought their piece of land, too.
        And this is why the Arabs can’t tolerate Israel. Israel shows what’s possible if you forsake their broken inshallah culture.

        2. What is odd is that their is at least one parallel in the Koran to Deuteronomy 28:8 (“The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand in the land the Lord your God gives you.”) in the Koran:

          “Indeed Allah will not change the conditions of a population until they change what is in themselves.”

          1. There’s a lot of the Koran that’s really just Old Testament reworked with even more elitism and hatred. I had a lot of uncanny valley moments of, “HUH? WHAAAATTT?” reading it.

            1. It’s not like Mohammed started Ab Initio, after all.

              You know, I can believe that an angel appeared to Mohammed in that cave. Lucifer was an angel of light, after all. Prince of this world, too.

            2. I’ve read some work that identifies word choices and phrasing as looking more like it comes from an Aramaic dialect than Arabic. Some scholarship traces source material to a Christian sect’s writings from Syria in the third or fourth century.

              Of course doing any research work in this area, let alone publishing, could generate attention which is counterproductive to retaining neck-head continuity, so it’s rare and getting rarer.

              1. The author of “Did Mohammed Exist”, defying issues of neck-head continuity, assembled current thinking and wrote that, yeah, a lot of the weirder passages in the Koran read like an Arabic speaker reading Aramaic (my example: like an English speaker reading a sentence in German and getting some of the words right but the sense totally wrong). The Koran itself is basically a creation of IIRC the first Abbasid caliph ca. 800AD, who correlated all the extant writings and bashed them into a single book, and then burned everything that didn’t match the final version. This is about like how the early Christian councils decided on which bits of Hebrew Scripture and which of the giant number of post-Jesus writings they were going to call “The Bible”.

                So while the Koran is supposed to be fixed and unitary (and only written by hand, which is why publishers in the Muslim world say they print “facsimiles” and not movable type prints), clearly post-800AD copy errors have slowly crept in and become locally canonical, even where a rogue imam didn’t find one of the pre-Abbasid versions in a mosque basement somewhere and decide he was going to put it in his new copy.

              3. Fun, or maybe not so fun, fact: Mohammed appears in Dante’s Inferno in the Eighth Circle of Hell among the “sowers of discord”. Their punishment is to walk endlessly around the circle being hacked apart by demons with swords, with their “wounds” gradually healing each time so that the process can be repeated. Mohammed is seen with his son in law Ali, walking around with his belly slit open from neck to nether regions (Dante describes this in rather, ahem, colorful language) while Ali’s head is split in half from noggin to neck. One commentary I read on this passage says that Dante thought of Mohammed more as a heretic from Christianity than as the founder of a separate religion.

      2. Joan Peters book From Time Immemorial lays out the process of Jews and Arabs moving into the area starting around 1870, and how the British choked off settlement of Jews in the Jewish homeland because they thought Arabs were cooler.

        2. Some time in the late ’60s, I read a copy of Leon Uris’s Exodus, and he touched on that as part of the back story. More of a 30,000 foot view, though.

    2. oh, you got past the ban again. Interesting.
      What you say is accurate. I’m still looking very closely at you for the usual insanity. Be aware getting around a ban is reason for banning. Be told.

    3. Mark Twain, in “The Innocents Abroad” wrote about how the Holy Land was basically an inhospitable, lightly-inhabited corner of backwardness when he visited there in the late 1860s as part of an organized tour. A few very backwards, disease-ridden, poor nomads … that was Palestine in the 19th century.

      1. That was one of the reasons why Twain became an atheist. He wrongly supposed that the Holy Land had always been like that, and therefore that the Old Testament was chockablock with lies.

  29. Thank you. “Proportional response” in this case guarantees the murder and evil will continue, because HAMAS will think its attacks were well worth the retaliation, and for that matter so will Iran. My husband thinks Gaza should be turned into a game park with the kind of animals you’d want to see. Nice, civilized animals.

      1. Speaking of dead-to-me, I saw the bit where Mike Pence decided that Trump’s behavior towards the rest of the world caused the attack.

        h/t Victorygirls for the tweet:

        This is what happens when we have leading voices like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis signaling retreat from America’s role as leader of the free world. When I’m President of the United States, we’ll lead from American Strength. pic.twitter.com/gW3HaN4fIp
        — Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) October 8, 2023

        What in hell was he huffing from Jan 20 2017 to Jan 20, 2021?

          1. Oh yeah. He thinks he can become president. [Presents both middle fingers for appropriate salute.]

            1. Not that he had a chance in HEdouble hockey sticks of getting the nomination, let alone elected, but I think what he just said pretty much killed anyone other than family members thinking kindly on him.

              He may be a devout Christian, but he comes off as being too weak to hold up a paper napkin.

          2. And neither Trump nor DeSantis has said to totally disengage from the world. I suspect Pence had the classic ” idiot advisers,” issue, and now he won’t need them any more.
            Also, Tom Hurd dropped out of the race. “Tom who?” is a totally appropriate response.

      1. Bad idea. Too close to Israel, and then you have all the nasty radiation and fallout to deal with.

        Now, a single Boeing B-52H Stratofortress, on the other hand, carries approximately 70,000 lbs. of conventional free-fall ordnance and air-launched cruise missiles.

          1. The Reader thinks that loading the B52 with fuel / air weapons would get most of the effect without the side effects of a nuke.

            1. On the practical side, sure. Nukes aren’t magic.

              They really are good at putting into a demonstration the line “Did. I . F-ing. Stutter?”

  30. The difference between Christianity and Islam, in a nutshell:
    Christianity posits that God is Love.
    Islam posits that God is Power.

    Muslims are Ringwraiths. On steroids.

    1. One other –

      Judaism and Christianity turn the focus away from the tribe and toward the nation. Islam, on the other hand, endorses the tribal culture.

    2. Oh no. You know, “All cultures, all civilizations, all value systems have as much value as their own” merely means that the Aztec, Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union, or North Korean cultures are just as nice and valuable as all other cultures. So obviously there’s nothing wrong with cutting out the still beating hearts of your enemies to make the corn grow higher, or gassing millions after stealing everything they own to enrich yourself, or starving millions to death because you don’t understand trade and economics.

          1. Best way I can think of to control my impulses around pretty young women; think of Kamala in bed with you. Cold showers are an aphrodisiac compared to her.

            1. Ah, the notorious Coyote Woman! Wake up with her head on your arm; chew off your arm to get away without waking her. 😉

  34. I’m going to be the moderate and suggest a measured response. (Edited from a Farcebook post, where I was more circumlocutious in phrasing.)

    Recall that the laws of war are enforced by reprisal, by which I mean a measured, deliberate, targeted tit-for-tat action which under other circumstances would violate the laws of war. E.g. (borrowing a fictional incident from Col. Tom Kratman’s books) shooting at a flag of truce from a particular outpost, could legitimately result in the other side announcing that for the rest of the battle no surrender would be accepted from that outpost.

    And of course, Hamas in its use of civilian clothes, and more perfidiously of IDF uniforms, is already outside almost any protections of the laws of war. Perhaps they may not be raped or tortured, but accepting surrender is not required, and I’m not sure summary execution after surrender is off the table either. Therefore…

    I see neither moral nor legal impediment to Israel announcing a policy of measured reprisals. Bring out a line of captured Hamassholes, and live-stream this:

    “For the abduction of Doron Asher and her daughters Raz (4½ years old) and Aviv (2½ years old).” Bang. Bang. Bang.

    “For the abduction of Shani Louk.” Bang. “For her rape.” Bang. Bang. “For her murder.” Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

    1. To be clear: This suggestion addresses immediate response. Not including Hamas members killed in battle, and not addressing the requirement that those responsible, if captured alive, be put on trial and hanged. This is specifically about immediate reprisals.

      1. All sounds reasonable to me. Regarding the treatment of HAMAS thugs, I’m not sure how the Hague and Geneva Conventions/Accords are written, but I’m fairly sure they only apply to the treatment of enemy troops (i.e., legitimate members of the armed forces) and noncombatant civilians. AFAIK they do not apply to anyone else, making the sort of scum we saw here pretty much fair game in that respect, subject only to restrictions imposed by the laws of Israel. And those would not normally apply on the battlefield. I could, of course, be mistaken.

        1. Any member of Hamas is guilty of aiding and abetting the commission of these atrocities. No different than the prison guards at the Nazi death camps, even if they did nothing directly. They may not warrant being executed, but they certainly should see nothing more than a prison cell for the rest of their lives.

          1. Every Hamas member and supporter—and I explicitly include the moral cretins marching in American and European cities in support—has forfeited any right to life. There are only practical reasons, not moral ones, to refrain from expunging them from society: I don’t look good in prison orange; and it’s unwise to give anyone “as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb” motivation.

            2. Can’t argue with you. And I am watching for sympathy attacks on Jews here in the U.S. Particularly since my oldest son is in a serious relationship with a cute Jewish woman.

                  2. “… EEEBEEEBEEEEDP …..grindgrind…bzzzrp…. Norman, coordinate! ” ….earsmoke……

                    1. I think the first thing Sarah will do to me if and when we ever meet face to face, is either thump me on the head with the con program, or bestow a real carp on me.

              2. It took until reading today’s news to realize what the fireworks I heard on Saturday night meant. I looked up every other event that it might have been, just in case. Nothing anywhere close enough.

                Further thoughts are unprintable.

                  1. Not until the leftists succeed in getting it renamed “Indigenous Peoples Day”. It’s already that on one of my wall calendars. 😡

            3. I second the THIS!

              When I read that some modern Turn-Em-Loose Bruce was killed by a criminal turned loose, and “It was still not justice,” I have to ask if it would be just had the criminal killed someone else. If not, then Turn-Em-Loose bore moral responsibility for the killing. What’s more just than the person who enabled the killing also being the victim? Whatever might be more just, the killing of someone less involved is certainly LESS just.

            4. “Every Hamas member and supporter—and I explicitly include the moral cretins marching in American and European cities in support—has forfeited any right to life.”

              Oh yes. I 100% agree. Particularly members of the Canadian government who have MOST UNWISELY voiced their support for Hamas since Saturday. Like this guy:

              https://tnc.news/2023/10/08/liberal-staffer-palestinian-violence/

              In case the link goes awry, a quote:

              “Brandon Montour, who is listed as a senior legal affairs advisor to Liberal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree on the federal government’s employee directory, also shared a post supporting Palestinian liberation through “whatever means necessary.”

              Those remarks were posted October 7th, during the attack, according to True North.

              So, yes. Because I am not a big believer in capital punishment by government, I’d be willing to consider dropping back to charges of treason and life in prison.

              1. I have no trouble with capital punishment, but only when certain conditions are filled.

                First, the man/woman prosecuting the crime must have no political interest in the verdict. That means, no local prosecutors, with the trial automatically having a change of venue from the area where the crime was committed.

                Second the jury may not be packed with people that are against Capital punishment. If a person is against capital punishment, they are disqualified. The jury is packed with people that will judge only on what is presented in court, not from their emotions.

                I would also add that appeals have a certain time during which they run, with the appellate courts not allowed to delay the execution of sentence beyond a certain point, and that they have a set period of time in which to render a decision. If they do not meet the deadline, then the sentence is upheld and is executed. Any decision must be constitutionally sound, and anything approaching a useless word salad is rejected. Just because the court says it is constitutionally sound does not make it so. A neutral outside authority makes that judgment.

              2. I believe the IDF is currently in the process of liberating quite a few “Palestinians” through “any means necessary”. My best wishes for their success.

            5. After some thought…

              The people in Gaza are presumed to be at least soft supporters of Hamas, the PA, etc.

              Assuming that our nonexistent border, Soros DAs and refusal to punish violent criminals in favor of punishing self defense encourages jihadis to try the same in American cities…

              …where commies et al have demonstrated their support for these atrocities by marching to support Hamas…

              how much worse does it have to get before we start assuming that the people of our blue cities are like the civilians of Gaza? 😬😱

              1. It would have to be MUCH worse. And it won’t get there.
                Look, no. Most people in blue cities don’t support this. REMEMBER blue cities have massive fraud, too.

        1. One of the most aggressive fighting admirals this country ever produced, William “Bull” Halsey, was credited with saying he would fight “until Japanese is spoken only in Hell.”

          Modify the quote as you see fit.

          1. “When this war is over, Japanese will only be spoken in H*ll.”

            Though given that some of the Japanese themselves tried very hard to make this a reality just before the surrender…

            1. Japan was thoroughly defeated in WWII, occupied by the US for some time afterward, and has not been a serious military threat to anyone since — but they do still exist as a nation today and Japanese is still spoken by millions of people outside of Hell. Plus they make very reliable cars (my 2001 Honda CR-V is hands down the best vehicle I’ve ever had, still going strong with 260,000+ miles). Yes, there was a period in the 1980s when it looked like they were economically going to take over the world but that seems to have passed, primarily due to their aging population and other issues. So I dunno that the only choices are “roll over and play dead” vs. “total annihilation of the enemy power”.

              1. There were attempts by some of the Japanese mid-level military leadership to block any attempts to surrender. At least one of those attempts was apparently a faked announcement to be broadcast over the airwaves ordering all of Japan to committ suicide. The idea was to shame the allies with the mass death of the population of Japan. Fortunately, the surrender occurred before that group was ready.

                The method that was actually attempted was to seize the recording of Emperor Hirohito’s announcement of the unconditional surrender before it was broadcast over the air waves. The goal of this group was still the annihilation of Japan, just at the hands of the Allies instead of self-inflicted.

              2. One of the many sins of American history education is that nobody taught my generation about the occupation of Japan.

                Specifically, that the American general in charge had to threaten to publicly resign to get a big enough surge of supplies to prevent mass starvation.

              3. Those may not be the only two alternatives…. but without a believable threat that “total annihilation of the enemy power” is a possible alternative, there will not be an end, only more bloodshed. Japan proved THAT, too.

            2. “Why isn’t Japanese only spoken in Hell?”

              “Particle physics.”

              “Huh?”

              “WithOUT the atomic bomb, what would figure would have happened?”

              “Oh..uh…oh crud.”

              “Yeah. Don’t give me that crap about the atom bomb being evil. Or the USE of it being evil. What was EVIL? The NEED for it to be used.”

      1. Parading around the corpses of a bunch of girls on live tv, that they killed for the sin of being at a music festival (for Gaza peace, no less) and being super duper proud of themselves for it will do that.

        Took me way too long to figure out why her leg was the wrong way around.

        Apparently the death toll from that concert alone was over 200.

        1. Just one more reason why I have no qualms about the deaths of every member of Hamas. They’re beyond reliable redemption. Send them back to God and let Him decide what to do with them. (Lord, can I suggest reincarnating them as 13-year old orphaned Jewish girls in Mecca, circa 800 AD?)

          1. I have elsewhere suggested the Deuteronomy remedy for Hamas and its supporting populace:

            Turn them out of Gaza and let them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until the generation that supported Hamas are dead. Their grandchildren may learn to behave like sane human beings.

            1. About 30 years ago I opined that the Palestinian problem would only end when the last child of the last refugee was dead. I’m thinking now maybe that’s “grandchild”.

          1. It’s all over the X/Twitter Ukraine War commenters I follow. About 9 to 1 “kill them all” vs. “muh proportionality”.

            1. Both of which positions are sugar-frosted gonzo.

              ‘Kill as many as necessary to end the threat’ will do nicely. It is madness to share your neighbourhood with people who have sworn to kill you. But if you remove the leaders and cow the rest, they may go back on that oath.

        3. A friend has pointed out that anyone who goes to international european music festivals is either wealthy, or if not wealthy at least still connected.

          A lot of Important People(tm) in Europe just had their kids butchered, or raped and then butchered.

          The fact that there is so much overlap between these people and the ones funding Hamas is just the cherry on top.

          1. Some of them are quite possibly going to be sold as slaves, publicly.

            And worse.

            Humiliation is their kink. Also their weakness, if you can restrain your squeamishness.

          2. There’s a post up at Insty stating that a professor at Brandeis was on the phone with her daughter when the latter was killed by Hamas.

            1. @ junior – in re the Brandeis professor’s daughter killed by Hamas: it was a postess by our hostess (I scrolled a long way to find it, but there are lots of important stories at Instapundit about the war).
              “AS SOMEONE POINTED OUT, THEIR IDIOTIC AND BARBARIC ATTACK ON THE RAVE WILL HIT A LOT OF VERY POWERFUL FAMILIES, ALL ACROSS THE WORLD: Brandeis professor was on the phone with daughter when she was killed by Hamas gunfire. (LINK)
              The poor and unconnected don’t fly internationally to attend a “rave for peace.”
              Posted at 6:00 am by Sarah Hoyt”

              Here’s the source of the link:
              https://nypost.com/2023/10/09/brandeis-professor-was-on-the-phone-with-daughter-when-she-was-killed-by-hamas-gunfire/

              She and her husband were not at the Rave, but in their home’s safe room (sadly not so safe) when attacked; they shielded their teen son, who survived.
              However, the US-university-elite connection still applies.
              How many of the father’s colleagues are marching for Hamas/Palestine?
              It’s hard to tell.

              https://brandeishoot.com/2023/02/17/perspectives-from-brandeis-community-members-following-palestine-israel-protest/
              “Following the pro-Palestine protest held by Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine and subsequent pro-Israel counter-protest, The Brandeis Hoot spoke with various members of the Brandeis community. ”

              https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-students-at-brandeis-vigorous-debate-about-israeli-politics-is-almost-taboo/
              (from 2018, nothing more recent other than the 2023-02 showed up)
              “Many from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict say they prefer to self-censor rather than get backlash from fellow students at the historically Jewish college”

        4. That’s a broken femur. I’ve been hoping they broke it -after- she died. We’ll probably never know, and the people who did it will probably skate.

          This is why I’m upset since Saturday, I saw that and knew what it was immediately.

          I put a nice picture of her up on my blog because I don’t want that other picture to be what people think of.

          One of -hundreds-. Hundreds! But here we are, and Canadian Government middle management minions and CUPE trade unionists are busy supporting it on social media. The Guardian UK is filled with nothing but “bomb damage in Gaza”.

          1. Here’s another data point. Sydney, Australia yesterday (last night AEST I guess). Jewish people were told BY THE QUEENSLAND POLICE to stay away from the Harborfront and Opera House areas because of large Hamas-supporting demonstrations. Meanwhile an Israel supporter waving an Israeli flag was detained and arrested by those same police while the Hamas-lovers cheered.

            It’s like the entire Anglosphere is in a race to the bottom to see whose metaphorical balls shrivel up and fall off first.

            1. The pro-Pali protesters in Toronto today looked nervous. Hefty police presence, very few protesters, media and TV trying to make it look like more but failing because it was a couple hundred communists.

              No arrests, even though the demonstration was illegal. Clearly City Hall lacks conviction.

              2. Deport them all and revoke whatever US citizenship they might have. Send them each to their true homes and let them fight it out there.

              3. :considers when she use to drive through that area:

                There are guys wearing American flags as capes, plus Israel Man there.

                That…would not be normal, ten years ago.

                Vs the death cult lovers– I wouldn’t have been surprised to see folks there doing an “Aztecs were mass murderers and that’s great, we should do that to” shtick– which are not a surprise.

                Good on the Americans standing up.

          2. “What will it take to beat hate” is a stupid question. Hate is just as much a part of us as love and all the other emotions, for good or ill. “Progressives” tell themselves they’re ending hate, and they see it everywhere — in other people. But they forget that they’ve got it too (or they develop a blind spot shaped exactly like it; or they tell themselves it’s really love; or…).

            Trying to stomp out a piece of yourself that CANNOT be stomped out has to be crazy-making.

            Everybody hates something and/or someone. Are you acting out of hatred? And who are you pointing it at? Those are the relevant questions, not how do you beat it or eradicate it.

            For a little while, my daughter went to a therapist whose approach was that all the emotions you feel are real and valid in themselves, and are neither inherently good nor bad. Even the negative ones. They’re all part of the human psyche for a good reason.

            And the key is to recognize them and decide what we DO with them. It’s not good to be controlled by your emotions, even the good ones. Avoidance can be a problem, too.

            I was always told (like most people, I suspect, and with the best of intentions) to avoid the “bad” emotions, and it was a tactic that functioned well for me in many ways. But in my daughter’s case, it was dysfunctional; it let anxiety run away with her. She needed to learn to take a step back and say “Why am I feeling this? What can I do about it? What should I do about it?” I’ve tried to take some of those lessons to heart too (probably with less success; a lifetime of habit).

            In recent years, I’ve thought about hatred a fair bit. I feel it…I really do.

            And I realized (it was a revelation for me, but maybe already obvious to others) that hate is what you feel when you’ve been violated — when you and your way of life and the people you love are threatened. It puts you on guard and prompts you to keep threats at a distance. And hatred and its cousin, anger, can help you to get rid of threats, violently if necessary.

            Hatred directed internally, not good. As a driving force in your life, not good. Directed toward the undeserving or simply undirected, not good. As a means of self-protection and maintaining essential boundaries? Necessary. Good, even.

            So yes, I hate progressivism, the left and its media machine, Islam as a religion, and most of the second- and third-world cultures I’m aware of — and I feel no need to apologize for it, because I know WHY I hate them. There’s no place in their world for me. And in the USA, they thrive at the direct expense of everything I love and value.

            Is there anything that could make me not hate them? Yes: They could leave me (us…the West…) alone. But they won’t, so here we are. Hatred it is. They’ve earned it.

        5. AG Hamilton posted a long and awful statement from a survivor. She survived by lying among the dead for three hours.
          But she got to that point by not crying and begging for her life….like the guy she was captured with did. It sounded very much from her statement that her courage (she called it, “apathy”) impressed one of her captors enough to let her run.

          1. Cultures like the Arab culture appreciate strength of will in the face of adversity. Won’t stop them from hating you for other reasons, but they acknowledge the attitude.

            Of course, depending on who your captor is, the end result could be anything from being caught in the hands of someone absolutely determined to make you bend, to a quick bullet in the brain, to what you’re describing. She still got lucky.

        6. John Ringo being all prescient again. Opening scenes of Ghost started out a lot like that…

    4. If you are belligerent captured under arms and out of uniform, you are subject to immediate and summary execution.

  35. The ignorance and idiocy is built on two foundations, or maybe three. The first is the refusal to believe in human evil. The second is the refusal to belive that humans are independent beings with their own beliefs and the free will to act on them. The third, implicit, is the belief that you know it all and have nothing to learn, and that whatever contradicts you, no matter how firmly grounded, is an illusion.

      2. I remember a number of years ago when an islamic reporter happened to be broadcasting live as a rocket was fired off from the street outside her balcony. Kinda hard to deny where that rocket came from.

  37. I read somewhere that nine Americans have been killed in this mess so far, on the Israeli side. Honestly, that in and of itself should be cause for us to turn Gaza into the surface of the moon, much less whatever the Israelis do to it. But I guess the past decades have proven that it’s totally OK to target Americans wherever they may be, because we will do nothing or at most respond with the traditional Strongly-Worded Letter. (Strongly-Worded Letters are OK, but I’d rather they be written on the sides of a lot of Mk 84s falling from a formation of B-52s.)

    1. Especially with the Hammas loving and terror abetting Democrats in power, funny I’ve heard nothing from the Democrat politicians of the Jewish faith. Chuckie you’all got blood on your hands. So much of this disgusts me on such a level. Be a Sherman and march to the sea, and burn down everything on your way there.

      Not forgetting the blob loving rhino’s either, I would use them for human mine field clearing.
      “Yes, Senator Romney, place your hands over your ears and start stomping on the ground, now a little to the left, a little farther back”
      “Boom”
      “yep, right there got it, Senator McConnell you are next, someone want to wake the turtle up?”

    2. At least 11 the administration admits to, plus an indeterminate number of possible hostages.

    3. I saw a list of foreign casualty figures somewhere earlier today. The US total was 9 dead. IIRC, Canada was 10 dead, and some missing (I can’t remember the exact number). The largest total for any single country was Thailand, with a total of 23 between the dead and missing. I’m guessing the Thais were in Israel for work, and got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

      Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the list now. I thought I saw it at Instapundit, but I can’t find it there or at any of the other sites that I usually frequent.

    4. The press release went out that the USS Ford strike group is shifting over to the right hand side of the Med towards Israel, but the Foggy Bottom Boys are leaking like mad that it will only be allowed to do civilian evacuation of US citizens and similar peaceful non-military stuff.

      Wouldn’t want to scare anyone or anything.

      2. Feh. Scare them. Scare them so bad it’ll take three generations to clean their shorts. Then skeer ’em some more. And if that ain’t enough, demonstrate WHY they ought to have been skeered.

  38. There are people, even perhaps among us here, who refuse to believe in absolute good and absolute evil.

    I pity them; because they are essentially shocked by evil people doing evil things in Israel, in spite of them chanting some version of “Death to America! Death to Israel!” since the late 7th Century.

    Granted their “opponents” often misbehaved; but that doesn’t excuse rape, murder of innocents, kidnapping, terroristic threats, and so on. Never. It’s always cowardly and wrong.

    And Hamas is just a tool of the real bastards in Tehran. Killing all of them is like treating blood poisoning with colorful band-aids with cartoon figures. Or treating gangrene by using scented candles to cover the odor.

    I have ideas; but mine are as useless as everyone else’s. And even if they were not, the WH wouldn’t listen.

    Prayers are probably our only effective “weapon” now.

  39. I hope the Israelis expect Gaza to be carpeted with IEDs and boobytraps.

    This attack is intended to draw ground forces into Gaza. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Iran test-fires their first nuke there.

  40. You know… In a lot of ways, this shows the Muslim world being weak.

    There are huge numbers of young men and women who are breaking away from Islam. Iran had some ridiculous number of mosques close in the last few years, because nobody was going there or donating.

    Online apologetics and arguments tend to show that almost any religion is a better option than Islam, and a lot of terrible facts show up that have been concealed. Just a few weeks ago, there was a big online kerplop when some semi-famous Islamic guys did a religion show about how Allah says it is okay to lie to your wives or secretly marry other wives, with their wives as guest stars. Needless to say, the women were unthrilled. Or the bit where Muslims learned that Quran texts differ quite a lot, when they had been told that all Qurans were exactly the same.

    So the Muslim leaders who are aggressive already, are starting to panic. They show their panic by violence and death, as a desperate attempt to show zeal. But they know they cannot win.

    Obviously it is better to refute them on the physical violence front also, if they are going to try it at all, and especially this horrifically.

    1. I’ve heard “You read the wrong version” (of the quran) from the same people who told me that all versions are the same. There’s also a belief that all teachings are the same, in spite of proof to the contrary.

      If you want to know their version of the end of the world, read Revelations with the roles reversed. Isa (Christ), returns alongside the 12th Imam to lead the 200 million man army against the Jews.

      This army will be the only source of peace, with the rest of the world at war, and the infidel will have two choices–either join the army and fight against the Jews (marked in the hand) or support the army (marked in the forehead). The third choice being death.

      Put the two accounts together, you get a very interesting picture.

      1. The Koran is only in Arabic. There is one version only. Editing is strictly forbidden.

        There is endless explanations, interpreting, and example stories.

        But they do avoid that whole “which translation” thing.

        1. Well, that was one reason they have stabbed and tried to kill the Christian evangelist Hatun Tash at Speaker’s Corner in London.

          She demonstrated with visual aids that there are at least 23 different versions of the Arabic Quran in print, and historically there were over 50.

          The Egyptians and Saudis push a single edition created in the 1920’s, but in Morocco they use a totally different one. And lots of other Muslim groups also use different versions, which are historically standard for them.

          There are literally thousands of current variants, without even getting into the ones mentioned as historical in ahadith.

          This is a very big deal in the Muslim world, and one of the things that is causing a lot of strife beneath the surface.

          Thus the attempt to stop their people from thinking about it.

            1. I wasn’t that obvious. Since there’s no specific “sarcasm” emoji, I tend to use this one: 😉 It usually gets the point across.

              Or the “/sarc” also works as a trailer.

        2. No, there are (curently) 23 different Arabic versions of the Quran, most prominently the Moroccan version (which is totally different from the 1920’s edition pushed by the Saudis and Egyptians).

          Historically there were hundreds of different versions, but most of them did not survive to the present day.

          Most Muslims were unaware of this until recently, which is one reason a lot of them are dissatisfied.

          1. And it’s only going to get worse as historic editions are recovered– the way historic translations of the Bible are recovered– and we find out what was in them that resulted in local authorities suppressing them.

    2. “a global war will bring about the return of Issa bin Maryam (Jesus)”

      For the more religious/woo woo among us, there is a grain of hope in that quote. “Issa bin Maryam” means “son of Mary”. The Virgin Mary is the ONLY woman mentioned in the Quran and she is considered the greatest of all women, even above any of Mohammed’s wives or daughters. Muslims, at least some, honor Mary as much or more as Catholic Christians do.

      Add to this the fact that some trad Catholic sites I’ve been following of late were speculating that some kind of big event with prophetic significance was going to occur in October, and highly encouraging their followers to start praying the Rosary daily, which was something Our Lady is said to have requested at Fatima…which shares the name of Mohammed’s favorite daughter.

      1. I must quip. When do they ever propose -not- doing so daily? Dandruff?

        But yes, prayer is advised as a good idea, even if only for how it comports the mind.

        1. Except that the Quran is pretty insulting about Mary too, if you get right down to the Arabic. It is just a little less insulting than usual, and there are nicer translated versions.

            1. The Koran is organized from largest to smallest chapter, not chronological. Which is weird considering tht a basic tenant of that faith is that what was said later supplants what was said earlier.

              1. It’s also broadly grouped into the Meccan and Medinan Suras, from the cities where they were written.

      2. There are a lot of conversion stories from the middle east that start with a local figuring out someone is a Christian–usually Catholic– and cornering them to ask about this woman in blue that keeps showing up in their dreams.

        You and I know who said lady is, and why she keeps trying to lead them to her Son.

        That said, Islam does not honor her in any manner which approaches basic human dignity. The “lie to the infidels” rule is solidly in place, there, and the place Mo envisioned for her is a lot more like those poor girls at the concert than the Queen of Heaven.

  41. Hm. My earworm is grumpy…..

    “Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor……”

  42. My, Oh My! Got a weird one at work. Someone identifying themselves as from CAIR, with a phone number that may or may not be valid, called to complain about a “student” here making vile remarks, though no threats, via DM. The name given doesn’t appear to be for a current student, and given the ubiquity of spoofing sites for phone calls, I’m not convinced it is a real complaint, especially since he asked me a couple of times what I felt about such conduct. But if you’re defending kidnapping, rape, and murder, you should expect people to be upset with you.

    1. There was a -small- pro-Palestinian demonstration at Toronto City Hall today. All white socialists, all brazening it out for the cameras, and all looking very nervous.

      This time is not like all the other times. This time social media is right there, broadcasting what they really did.

      3. I am reminded of one former teacher who opined of one particular group that he could have done the world a huge a favor by tossing a single grenade in the midst of them…

  43. Just how does one go about cleaning all these houses filled with evil. Gaza, Israel, Europe, Washington, editorial boards and press rooms. It is so overwhelming, so disheartening, so seemingly impossible. Exactly as planned. We send a useless carrier group when we should send shells, bullets, MWRPs, and AFVs, but we’re out of those because we sent them elsewhere. Pity we can’t bottle resolve and send that. And keep a bit for ourselves.

    1. Carrier groups are definitely not useless, and you deal with an overwhelming looking job the same way you deal with any other overwhelming mess.

      Identify specific issues— not, “so much evil!”– and then find an aspect you can fix.

      “My house looks horrible” is wrong. “The floor is covered with clothes” is right, even if it’s not all of the right.
      Then figure out if they’re clean, or if they are dirty, or not worth keeping. For each item.

      It works, which puts it head and shoulders above standing around going “oh, this seems impossible!”

      1. But this time you’re looking through the door into someone else’s house, feces smeared on the walls, rats crawling through what used to be carpet, and s/he is standing there with a rifle insisting that there’s no problem.

        1. Is Israel saying there is nothing wrong?

          Is America? Because half of those examples are in America.

          Even in Europe, folks are recognizing there are issues.

          I’ve cleaned up literal houses that trashed– if you really hate someone and wish to destroy the building, potatoes that will be left long enough to rot and get maggots are highly effective, the starch makes it so they are nearly as nasty as meat but it’s much cheaper– and it is doable. Superior to setting it on fire, and far superior to throwing your hands up in the air and going “Oh! But this is so NASTY!”

          1. My point is that it’s much harder to solve a problem in another culture when the people who belong to that culture do not believe there is a problem.

            Sure, we can fix problems in the US. But no one is going to fix the primary problem until the people inside the culture decide it needs to be addressed.

            1. … you might want to go back up and read the original comment.

              It’s explicitly past the “recognize there is a problem” stage, and at the “stand there crying that it’s impossible to do anything” stage.

      2. You miss my point. RESOLVE. Blog posts are the modern equivalent of “a strongly worded letter to the Times” and an analogy to “virtue signaling”. We need to confront these action here and now. If there is a pro Hamas protest we need to confront and shame them at every opportunity. Follow the lead of progressives and the author of “Rules for Radicals”, allow the leaders and supporters of these actors “NO PEACE”. Not violently, but engage them on the streets, at their protests, in restaurants, in places of worship. Show that you know how vile their position is and you refuse to accept it. RESOLVE, whether it’s Israel attacking Hamas or us standing up to a supporter in the public square. Stand Up.

          1. Thee strongly worded letter doesnt require shore police to get all the characters back aboard after liberty call.

            Heh.

          2. We can discuss that when we see how it is used. Remember two things, Desert 1 and Obama’s main Biden quote.

            1. :eyeroll: Oh, goodie, now it’s the gun banner argument of “only defensive gun uses where you actually shoot someone count.” International edition!

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  45. These people never consider that ignorance might allow for peace and that learning more about other people might makes various groups realize that they really do hate each other.

  46. Only tangentially related to, well, anything, but something has been bothering me for a few weeks. (Well before notice of this current insanity.)

    In Sunday school, the other week, the lesson was on both Isaac and Ishmael being promised to be fathers of great nations. Someone asked what nation Ishmael was the father of, and someone else replied, “The Muslims.”
    And every time my husband and I tried to object, he just related it as if it were self evident, and he had no idea why we were making such a fuss. (We tried several different tacks, and didn’t even have time to get around to the chronological one.)

    If he had said the Arabs, or even the Palestinians, we wouldn’t have argued.

    1. Too many conflate Arab (or Persian, or Kurd, or Turk, or or or) and Muslim. That one does not necessarily lead to the other, does not compute. Copts, Zoroastrians and what come as a shock. Same people too often think Sikhs are Muslims.

  47. My beloved listens to a Ukrainian reporting on the war there. He is appalled by the situation in Israel, but has the European, “the Israleis should be careful, there are innocent women and children who have nothing to do with Hamas!” attitude. He’s right, of course, but that isn’t likely to stop the Israelis at this point and it probably shouldn’t.
    He made the point, however, that Hamas has hostages…but since Israel has cut food, water and power ro Gaza Israel is, in a sense, holding all Gaza hostage in return. It’s a different way to look at it.

  48. So here’s a related topic that I’m suddenly wondering about. It’s “common knowledge” that Gaza has a population of 2.3 million, making it the third or fourth most densely-populated area on the planet.

    But…

    Go look at Gaza in satellite view: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.4302166,34.3935731,66549a,35y,356.48h/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

    Look at the buildings. They are almost entirely one- or two-story structures. Look at all the open space. Look at the dearth of high-rise apartments.

    Gaza is roughly 25×5 miles, more or less. That’s about the dimensions of the Seattle city limits, and Seattle has comparatively very little open space and (even though the city is infamous among the urbanists for having a high proportion of single-family dwellings) lots and lots of medium- and high-rise apartments. Seattle’s population is just under 750,000.

    I know — well, I “know” — that the Gaza Palestinians have a huge number of children, but unless everyone is packed into the buildings at about four times the density of Americans in Seattle — and why would they be when there’s so much more open space? — then I don’t think there’s any possible way that there are actually 2.3 million Gazans.

    I think this is an example of Sarah’s contention that population counts are vastly inflated because aid is doled out per head. I’m just surprised that nobody else has noticed.

    2. The thing is, aid isn’t doled out per head. It’s doled out based on what makes good photo-ops for the donor NGOs.

      As the late P. J. O’Rourke pointed out, Tanzania was for many years the biggest per-capita recipient of aid in the world, for no better reason than that it has cool animals. The bien-pensants do not like to see starving peasants when they’re out on safari.

      Comparing Seattle to Gaza, in any case, is ridiculous. One is an extremely affluent First World city. The other is an unusually crowded and filthy Fourth World hellhole. Why, you ask, would the Gazans be packed in so tightly when there’s ‘so much more open space’? Because they need every inch of arable land they have just to feed part of their population, and can’t afford to build on any of it.

      What’s more, most of them have never known any living conditions that weren’t unsanitary and overcrowded. George Orwell wrote (in The Road to Wigan Pier, I believe) that someone asked a slum-dweller in the north of England when the housing crisis there started. ‘When we were told about it,’ was the answer. Living ten to a room in ramshackle houses was normal back then in the English slums. It is still normal in many parts of the world.

      This is not to say that I trust the official figures. But I do not regard them as impossible.

      (Heinlein made what I believe to be a similar mistake about the population of Moscow. He knew the existing transportation and other infrastructure couldn’t supply a Western city of more than about 750,000 people, so he imagined that was all the population Moscow had. He left out of account the fact that most Muscovites were dirt-poor and plagued by permanent shortages of everything except bad vodka; and there was little traffic because, frankly, there was nowhere for anyone but the apparatchiks to go. A million people could not have lived well in Moscow; but several million could live very badly indeed. However, I agree with Heinlein that the official figures were ginned up to make Moscow seem bigger than London or Paris, and that was clearly nuts.)

        1. …while the CIA parroted the official numbers given by the communists. They’ve been incompetent forever, and evil since at least the early 1960’s. Defund and disband the CIA!

          1. I believe the CIA were under orders to parrot those numbers. It was a matter of policy to make the Soviets look more populous and richer, and therefore more dangerous, than they actually were. A stupid policy, but it made it easier to get bloated defence appropriations through Congress.

            However, I do agree with the idea of disbanding them. One could well say to them what Cromwell said to the Rump Parliament. In particular:

            ‘Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

            ‘Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?’

            (One could wander around D.C. all day making that speech in different places, right up to and including the Capitol. Come to that, one could do it in the capitals of most countries.)

        2. How do you know?

          As I say – if there were only 750,000 people in Moscow, they wouldn’t have had the chronic shortages of everything that they had. The infrastructure was quite sufficient for a city of that size, but not sufficient for a city with the population Moscow actually had.

            1. Yes, but if they’re going to have shortages, there is no point in building the infrastructure that would be required to keep them supplied adequately.

              We are talking here about people who, for the most part, lived below a Third World standard of living. In Third World countries, you don’t spend six hours in the sausage queue only to find that the sausage ran out in 30 minutes. Most Russians in 1917 were dirt poor; then the Bolsheviks took away the dirt.

              Compare the logistics required to support an affluent First World population and those required to support Soviet muzhiks under prison-camp conditions, and you don’t get the same answers.

              1. IIRC, he didn’t use “first world standards.”

                He used, “match what I can actually see.”

                Similar math gets done in India– even using assumptions of water use that are below what is observed to be possible for humans to live on, the numbers don’t work. (that’s not figuring on safe water, either)

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  50. Some interesting items from Axios (h/t Instapundit) –

    The UAE, which has relations with both Israel and Syria, has reportedly advised Syria to stay out of the current war.

    Also, a couple of gunmen slipped into Israel from Lebanon. Hezbollah immediately denied involvement, which might be a possible gauge of how seriously Hezbollah views the situation right now.

    Islamic Jihad subsequently took responsibility for the gunmen, though apparently not before Israel launched a strike against Hezbollah, which caused Hezbollah to respond with a small volley of rockets.

  51. Here’s an idea — Israel could buy Gaza and hand the money to the Palestinians as they are all shipped elsewhere. Every last one. Clean out that festering shithole without being accused of atrocities and genocide. Drag out the ones that won’t leave voluntarily, and shoot back when shot at.

    I know, nobody else wants them either, but that could change if they came bearing money.

            2. Not even with my enemy’s equipment.

              That said, the UN is the root of the issue.

              You can’t come up with a solution that does not involve dealing with them at the very least continuing the nonsense they have been doing up to now.

    2. You can’t bargain with people who feel it is their god-given (scriptural) duty to lie to you.

      You can’t make a treaty with someone who believes that his God wants you dead, at any cost.

    3. You’re thinking in terms of an honorable and logical enemy. That’s not what we have in this case.

    4. Part of the problem is that no one else wants the Palestinians. The Arab nations have refused to resettle them. They’re trouble everywhere else, especially if you have a Jewish population. Who in their right mind wants to resettle a bunch of fanatical, virulently anti-Semitic islamists in their country?

      Aside from DC, of course. And I suspect our State Department would prefer that they remain where they are to cause trouble for Israel.

    5. Last I heard, it doesn’t cost any money to be relocated to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

  53. Something interesting I noticed in the videos: a rocket blows up in Israel and damages a building. An artillery shell blows up in Gaza and 4 or 5 buildings collapse in a chain reaction.

    1. That might be middle eastern building practices.

      Not just fraud, like in China, either– the guys on the ship would talk about walking next to a building, putting a hand out to lean over and check their boots, and their hand would go through the wall.

      Build something too nice, and it’s taken away from you.

    2. These people weren’t intending to stay–they were going to quickly wipe out Israel, drive the infidel back into the sea, and take what the Jews left behind.

      Under those circumstances, why build to last?

      1. “Inshallah”.

        The building stays up if he wills it. If not, because he wills it.

        That is a whole ‘nother level of disfunction

        1. Also leads to, “why not steal and sell building stuff and benefit my family. The shoddy building stays up or falls inshalla.” (Not because I sold the proper rebar and bought crap instead.)

          3. Sudden impractical evil idea – trade Hamas for Uighurs from China.
            Israel gets neighbors without a history of hate, and China gets people who already understand local building codes.

            —
            Like you haven’t heard worse ideas today.
            /sarc in case not obvious. If nothing else, there’s ~10X the Uighur population, they wouldn’t fit.

        2. I had that discussion with a friend yesterday. She spent significant time in the ME over her career. She said it extends to all aspects of behavior. At least, male behavior. “If A didn’t want me to rape, it wouldn’t have happened. If He didn’t want me to dismember that child, it wouldn’t have happened.”

          So, my gloss on this, violence becomes a form of worship, doing the will of God by giving in to all your worst instincts.

          Of course, that doesn’t apply in the opposite direction. Therefore, if Allah wills that a true believer die by violence, He takes the person and leaves a “stock” in his place. So the true believer doesn’t suffer. Of course, the stock still screams and begs, but that’s OK. It’s no longer a person.

  54. 40 babies slaughtered, some beheaded. There is no retribution too severe for that type of barbarity. If it takes exterminating them, including those protesting in their favor in other nations, so be it. That includes Harvard and the Democrat party that supports the Terrorists. You want to redeem and repent, fine with me, just do it just as loud as you supported these monsters, and join in their destruction.

      1. @ Sarah – WE don’t kill babies, terrorists and Democrats do; the latter simply prefer to do it before they are born.

        1. latter simply prefer to do it before they are born.
          ………………

          Not according to the democrats blathering about post birth abortion. No matter how much others, including those normally on their side, shout “Murder. Infanticide!” This may have dropped off the news. Their stance hasn’t changed. Never. Forget.

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