The New York Times effectively calls for Hamas to apologize on national TV, world governmental bodies have no interest in justice and no means to deal with Hamas, the Biden Administration wants to pause the fighting to resupply the enemy, and no one in the mainstream media wants to talk about the antisemitism rampant in progressive circles.
Imagine you and your wife are at a bar minding your own business. Someone walks up to you whom you’ve had a history of trouble with, but it’s been a while since you’ve done more than exchange words. This doesn’t prevent him from cold-cocking you, tying you down, grabbing your wife, raping her while you watch and then slitting her throat. While she bleeds out on the floor, you somehow manage to wiggle free and get to your feet. You find that you’ve a much larger knife of your own in your hand and a sudden skill in using it. It will not be easy or painless, but somehow you know that you can overpower the man if you only have the will to do so. It’s purely a matter of commitment to the purpose and time, but the man turns to you before you strike back, puts his own blood stained hands up, and insists he doesn’t believe in violence anymore, possibly with a sinister grin. It’s time for a truce and you should simply put this all behind you now. He still hates you and wants you dead, of course, but at the moment, if you would be so good, please hand him a washrag to remove the blood from his hands and allow him to peacefully exit the bar. Further, you should agree that there is no need to get the police involved or seek any justice for the crime, either. They wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway, and it’s best to just go your separate ways once more, continuing onward as if nothing ever happened – until you meet again. Ask yourself honestly, what would you do in that situation? Just let the man leave after he’s raped and killed your wife, knowing another possibly much worse, altercation is only a matter of time, whatever that may mean in this situation, or would you seek to end it right then and there?
Metaphorically speaking, this is the decision Israel faces at the moment, three weeks after one of the most heinous unprovoked attacks in modern history and rather incredibly, there are those who insist an immediate ceasefire – in other words walking away and doing nothing – is the only acceptable course of action for the war torn country, still grieving their loss. The people and organizations pushing for Israel to simply lay down their arms are diverse, but largely progressive. This includes major media institutions such as The New York Times, which has recently published an opinion piece on the topic fresh off of promoting Hamas propaganda and smearing Israel. This time around, Thomas L. Friedman urged Israel to follow the lead of India, which suffered a terrorist attack in 2008 that left 160 dead in Mumbai. “What was Singh’s military response to India’s Sept. 11? He did nothing. Singh never retaliated militarily against the nation of Pakistan or Lashkar camps in Pakistan. It was a remarkable act of restraint.” Rather than mounting a full scale invasion, Mr. Friedman advocated “a much more targeted, fully thought-through response by Israel. It should have called this Operation Save Our Hostages and focused on capturing and killing the kidnappers of children and grandparents. Every parent could understand that.” In that case, what should happen to the over 1,000 Hamas terrorists that slaughtered some 1,400 innocent men, women, and children in cold blood for no reason? “I want to see Hamas’s leaders come out from their tunnels under hospitals and look their people, and the world’s media, in the eye and tell us all why they thought it was such a great idea to mutilate and kidnap Israeli children and grandmothers and trigger this terrible blowback on the children and grandmothers of their Gaza neighbors — not to mention their own.” To my knowledge, this innovative military and foreign policy strategy has yet to be named. You will not find any history book detailing the success of a great leader who did the same and succeeded, but we might call it the “misbehaving teenager doctrine.” Everything will be better if Hamas explains itself like your son or daughter after they borrowed the Porsche without permission and wrapped it around a telephone pole. Of course, Mr. Friedman is supposed to be a serious person, a real card carrying expert as Dr. Anthony Fauci might say, and yet here he espouses that all will be well after a televised confessional. Perhaps we can resurrect Jerry Springer to moderate.
Mr. Friedman is not alone among supposedly serious people advocating something similar, either. Progressive politicians in the United States including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and others have been advocating for a ceasefire before the bodies lining the streets in Israel were even cold. Less than 48 hours after the attack – when no justice had been found or retribution enacted – Representative Ocasio-Cortez issued an official statement, “Today is devastating for all those seeking a lasting peace and respect for human rights in Israel and Palestine. I condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms. No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region. An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives.” Politicians are, of course, notorious for equivocating and expert at speaking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time, but here, she elevates the skill into an absurdist art form, condemning the attack in “the strongest possible terms” while advocating for those who committed it to simply walk free, not even going as far as Mr. Friedman in demanding an explanation. Global governmental groups and NGOs are calling for the same let it be approach. The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guiterres put it this way, “I reiterate my strong appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, together with the unconditional release of hostages and the delivery of relief at a level corresponding to the dramatic needs of the people in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes.” He is so committed to this course, Secretary General Guiterres directly criticized Israel as she was beginning a previously announced ground campaign to rid the world of Hamas, recasting any and all objectives in the region from destroying Hamas to providing humanitarian aid, and acting like Israel defending herself was a surprise. “Regrettably, instead of the pause, I was surprised by an unprecedented escalation of the bombardments and their devastating impacts, undermining the referred humanitarian objectives.” “This situation must be reversed,” he said without irony or any desire for justice, adding, “I want to repeat what I said yesterday. This is the moment of truth. Everyone must assume their responsibilities. History will judge us all.” In his view, the moment of truth was not when 1,400 civilians were slaughtered. The moment of truth was when Israel struck back, and history is judging. Likewise, the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, and others have called for the same. The old slogan “No justice, no peace” has apparently been rewritten to “No justice, period.”
The Biden Administration, meanwhile, has not embraced this approach in its totality, at least so far. Instead, they are recommending another hitherto unknown strategy, only slightly more or less absurd depending on your perspective: A humanitarian “pause.” Last week, NBC News reported, “The Biden administration is pushing for more aid to get into Gaza and signaling Israel to ‘pause’ its military offensive against Hamas militants, amid concerns that days of heavy bombardment and a siege of the Palestinian enclave are creating a growing humanitarian disaster and raising the risk of a wider conflict.” A day earlier, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that “humanitarian pauses must be considered” to supply the Gaza Strip. The proposed pause was a “deliberate” change in language and strategy, and would last for an “indeterminate duration,” suggesting it might not be all that different from a ceasefire anyway. Overall, “The administration was trying to walk a fine line, the official said, balancing the need to support Israel and its right to defend itself after suffering a brutal surprise attack, while also acknowledging the need to create a window for the delivery of humanitarian aid.” The only problem with this approach: The aid in question would be delivered directly to Hamas itself because Hamas is the governing body in the Gaza Strip and has been since 2006 when the Palestinian people voted them into power themselves. Nothing goes into or out of the region without their knowledge and control; pretending otherwise is either incredibly foolish or deliberately misleading. While countries at war with one another have negotiated brief pauses in fighting in the past, primarily to gather and bury their dead, this would mark the first time in recorded history where one side was expected to allow a resupply and regroup of the other in the middle of a conflict. Even if Hamas could be trusted to maintain its part in the pause – hint, anyone that slaughters infants in their cribs cannot be trusted under any circumstances – it would be as if US and British forces took breaks in the the bombing of Dresden during World War II, an assault which occurred between February 13 and 15, 1945, to give the Nazis a breather. Putting the absurdity of this suggestion in the proper perspective alone isn’t easy even with such an analogy. The United States, the country that is supposed to be Israel’s closest ally in the entire world, is urging them to follow a course of action completely counter to their own strategic objectives, which we recently said we stand “shoulder to shoulder” with. Their one and only goal is to eradicate Hamas. Allowing them pauses in the action would make that more difficult. Feeding them and providing medical supplies might make that outright impossible.
The administration might well be trying to “walk a fine line” as NBC suggests, but the result is straddling both sides of the fence and recommending policies that make no coherent sense, policies that have never before been attempted in any conflict for obvious reasons. If indeed the United States plans to support Israel in this battle, we should be offering suggestions that will guarantee victory as quickly as possible. Instead, we are calling for things that will result in a longer, harder war and more Israeli deaths. The cynic in me can’t help but conclude this is at least partially intentional. I understand the desire to sympathize with the Palestinian people, but sympathy with the plight of innocent civilians has never before been seen as an excuse to provide succor to the enemy. Propping up Hamas with food and medical supplies will only make it worse for civilians in the long run in my opinion. We should instead be promising to provide expanded aid once they help rid the Strip of Hamas, asking them to rise up and take charge of their own future rather than living in the shadow of monsters.
Sadly, we can expect President Biden’s “fine line” approach to continue as key constituencies in his own party rail against Israel, attempting to rise up against those who were attacked rather than the attackers themselves. As a Democrat, the President does have one advantage over a Republican in this regard: He can rely on the media to pretend what amounts to an explosion of antisemitism from his own ranks has nothing to do with him as the leader of the party. Once upon a time, the President himself claimed he only ran for the highest office in the land because he was shocked by the emergence of white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers under President Trump. Today, however, antisemitic statements are emanating almost exclusively from the far left and they are doing so on a daily basis. Ilhan Omar, for example, a member of the House of Representatives, recently retweeted a rant that claimed Israel itself is a British conspiracy to steal land and money from Arab peoples. Representative Pramila Jayapal, another progressive and member of the squad, has previously said Israel was a “racist state” and more recently warned the President to be “careful” supporting their efforts. Progressive hero Bernie Sanders was targeted simply for tweeting to remember the fifth anniversary of an antisemitic attack in Pittsburgh that left five dead at the Tree of Life synagogue. “Today,” he wrote, “we remember and mourn for the victims lost five years ago in the devastating massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue. We must remain committed to fighting all forms of bigotry, antisemitism, intolerance, racism, and xenophobia.” In any normal era, that would not have been an objectionable remark, the kind of boilerplate people put out to mourn tough milestones, but in our day, he was immediately attacked. “Wow how you have let many down who looked up to you. Mourn Gaza. Condemn Israel,” one poster responded. “OMG, could you be more disgusting? Thousands of Palestinians are being slaughtered in a genocide by Israel and you post this? Yes, it was in the past, but today we are witnessing an genocide and you cannot even acknowledge the value of those human lives. You are disgusting,” claimed another. Many simply said “Shame on you.” Swastikas and antisemitic chants have been heard on college campuses, and at protests across the country, primarily in more urban areas and progressive enclaves. A media that never hesitates to confront any Republican with any comment by anyone even nominally conservative, however, has so far refused to similarly confront Democrats with these overt displays of racism. The best they can do is to allow President Biden himself to comment on some generalized rise of anti-Semetism, as if the progressive movement has nothing at all to do with it.
We can expect this to continue, but how long the President, never known as strong or decisive, can fend off an uprising from his own party and the world governmental bodies they hold dear remains unknown. Not long at all is what I would personally guess.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 