Must We Continue to Fool Ourselves?

David P. Goldman, a right smart observer of military and geostrategic matters, and the Middle East in particular, recently wrote:

"We may not learn soon, if ever, exactly how the sectarian politics of radical Islam intersected and diverged between the Sunni jihadism embodied in the Brotherhood and Shi’ite jihadism sponsored by Iran. What the Gaza disaster makes clear is that neither Israeli nor American intelligence understood the opposition. The Biden Administration wooed the Iranians with a $6 billion cash ransom for American hostages, while the Qataris financed Hamas as it were under the nose of the American military."

Contrary to the articles contention, we do know how Sunni Hamas' and Shiite Iran's interests converged. It's called "do what I need and I'll like you for now." If it is ever in Iran's interest, they will squash Hamas like a bug, but the Mullahs of Iran have signed up to destroy Israel more than any other thing, except perhaps awaiting the return of the 12th Imam.

But there is a more important lesson here, one that is so far out in the open that only those who will call for peace at any cost will miss it. "If someone says they are going to kill you, don't imagine they're going away because you paid them." This isn't just true of Hamas, it's true of the "mainstream" Palestinian Authority (PA), which talks about a two state solution when speaking in English to the wishful fools in the West, while calling for complete extermination of Israel in its Arabic media. Those useful idiots, including those in the US State Department, who think the hate spewed in the Arabic media is just to appease the masses, are functional morons.

So, while it's correct that relationships in the Middle East can be complex, it's also accurate to say the the fundamental drivers and ambitions of the region can be distilled down to a few facts. Hate the Jews, destroy Israel, and get paid to 'not' do it by Israel's supposed allies as long as it's convenient. After that, move on to using the remaining moslem emigres in the west as a Trojan Horse for western civilisation. This isn't alarmist thinking; it's a simple reading of what 'they' say. If it weren't so, there is a good chance that at least some Arab regimes would actually be trying to improve the lot of their citizens, at least a little.

Understanding these facts makes for hard work; Israel's allies would prefer that she just go away, so that they can move on with their next do-gooder project. Unfortunately for the US and Europe, those pesky Jews have no place to go. That's how their ancestors ended up there in the first place.

We Can But Reap What We Sow

Now that President Biden has aided and abetted the Hamas attack on Israel, he has decided to “fully stand behind the Jewish state.” It appears that the only thing worse than a lying, thieving Republican is a lying, thieving Democrat. (Trump fans can stop reading now)

There is plenty of blame to go around. Hamas bragged months ago about their aim of conducting an attack to overwhelm the Iron Dome system. A pretty good thumb rule is, when your long-time enemy says he’s out to murder you, believe him and govern yourself accordingly.

There may be plenty of blame to go around, but we ought not to use that fact as a way to spread it thin, instead of identifying the clear culprits.

President Biden, and his National Security advisor, Anthony Blinken, are at the top of the list. They apparently need to hedge their bets with the Islamist wing of the Democratic Party. Upon taking power, Biden and his administration resumed aid to Gaza; it seemed as if they couldn’t wait. That’s the same as resuming aid to Hamas. It’s not sufficient to say that Hamas rules Gaza. Gaza is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hamas. In furtherance of this idiotic move, Biden released six billion dollars frozen funds Iran, supposedly only to be used for humanitarian purposes. I’m sure that’s enforceable. For reasons that are best understood by understanding that liberals never stop thinking that being nice to your enemies will make them be nicer to you, Biden-Blinken and company simply ignored all the physical evidence that demonstrated exactly what Iran and Hamas thought of both Israel and the United States, and what they have been saying they intend to do. The mullahs must have been laughing their heads off over American naivety. It may also be that the President is simply tired of those pesky Jews insisting that one can’t make peace with terrorists. In that regard, Biden and Trump have something in common: both don’t believe their own intelligence agencies. One can forgive Biden (a little) by remembering that he appears to be a doddering old fool, but Blinken, one of the principal architects of the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, should be held to account immediately. The man is a moron. He's Jewish, so I suppose one can't call him anti-semitic. Anyway, moron is a more precise technical term for what he is.

For the Israeli leadership, this is an inexcusable intelligence failure, coming almost exactly fifty (Gregorian) years after their previous intelligence-failure fueled debacle – the surprise attack that opened the 1973 war.

Those who think Hamas doesn’t watch television or cruise the Internet might want to look at the video of a Hamas drone destroying an Israeli Merkava tank by dropping a bomb nearly vertically upon the tank’s vulnerable topsides. The Ukrainians have been doing this to Russian tanks for months, and publishing the videos.

Israel is now faced with a dilemma such as she hasn’t faced in decades. Does she go all out to destroy Hamas, or does she account for the hundreds of hostages the Islamic terrorist group has spirited away to Gaza. At least with Barack Obama gone from the White House we can once again use the term “Islamic terrorist.” That’s cold comfort, but it’s the only comfort we’re likely to have from Biden’s disastrous foreign policy.