Let's take a
quick look at some of this past week's insane statements made by President
Felon. It started during the visit of Bibi Netanyahu, a similarly crazy world
leader. The guy is finally making progress getting hostages released, yet he's
jumping right up onto the lunatic bandwagon. One would think he would've told
President Felon not to announce until the hostages are back. But, y'know,
diarrhea of the mouth is a terrible thing to waste. From press conference on February 4th transcript:
Well, I think Jordan and Egypt will. I know they’ve spoken about it with you, and they say they’re not going to accept them. I say they will, but I think other countries will accept also. I think that Gaza maybe is a demolition site right now. If you look at Gaza, it’s all, I mean, it’s hardly a building standing, and the ones that are, are going to collapse. You can’t live in Gaza right now, and I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.
You look over the decades — it’s all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes, and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza. And right now, you have in Gaza a very dangerous situation in terms of explosives all over the place, in terms of tunnels that nobody knows who’s in the tunnel. The whole thing is a mess.
And I think that if we can resettle — and I believe we can do it — in areas where the leaders currently say no. I mean, I’ve been saying that with Mexico, having to do with the border and all the things, and you saw what happened: 10,000 soldiers, and they’re going to do a good job. I really believe that. And I believe Canada is going to do a good job also. They said the same thing, and then they did something much different than what you were hearing.
This is a very, very difficult situation, but we’re going to get it solved. I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell. They live like, you’re living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back — and I believe this strongly — is because they have no alternative. What’s the alternative? Go where? There’s no other alternative. If they had an alternative, they’d much rather not go back to Gaza, and live in a beautiful alternative that’s safe.
The circus train continues down that track on February 10th as reported by CBS News:
"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings — level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job. Do something different.
"Just can't go back. If you go back, it's gonna end up the same way it has for a hundred years. I'm hopeful that this ceasefire could be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all. With the same goal in mind, my administration has been moving quickly to restore trust in the alliance and rebuild American strength throughout the region and we've really done that.
Trump also said he isn’t ruling out deploying U.S. troops to support reconstruction of Gaza. He envisions “long-term” U.S. ownership of a redevelopment of the territory.
Less than a week after he floated his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and turn it in “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump, in an interview with FOX News’ Bret Baier that was set to air on Monday, said “No, they wouldn’t” when asked if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory. It comes as he has ramped up pressure on Arab states, especially U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, to take in Palestinians from Gaza, who claim the territory as part of a future homeland.
“We’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”
Needless to say, Hamas has called a halt to the ceases-fire and hostage release. They claim Israel broke the cease-fire, but anyone with half a functioning brain knows they are not going to deal with anyone planning ethnic cleansing in their own territory and a permanent ban on returning to their homeland.
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID ANYONE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?????? Did anyone NOT see this coming?
And if that was not enough unmitigated joy for one blog, President Felon had to add this invitation to a bigger war:
Forgive me for being a total pessimist here, but Feckless Tangerine just threw down a gauntlet that put Israel smack dab in the crosshairs of Iran. Is he trying to start a nuclear war with Iran? Telling Hamas he's gonna release the kraken on them if they don't pony up the hostages? Oh, yeah, Hamas will respond real well to that.
As for the Mideast Riviera, anyone been to Atlantic City lately? He doesn't have a good track record with high end anything, much less resorts, casinos, or country clubs. And that line about "No big money spent?" Can you say Mexican border wall, boys and girls?
The really scary part is that no one in Congress seems to be noticing that our duly elected president is completely unhinged. And I hear Putin is waiting for details before passing judgment on this grand plan. I mean he is, after all, involved with a similar situation with Ukraine, right? Birds of a feather.....
For the record, none of this is funny.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Since Jordan and Egypt's are unwilling...with good reason....
to entertain the idea of resettling Palestinians with them,
how about we ship 'em all to Greenland and the new 51st state, Canadia?
Plenty o'room out on the tundra to resettle an entire population.
May as well make some money on rents and income taxes, eh?
Bottom: Ori Danino, 25, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23,
6 hostages executed by Hamas this past week.
Executed.
At close range.
"The bodies were taken to the National Center of Forensic Medicine, where an examination determined the six had been killed by 'multiple close-range gunshots' within the previous 48 to 72 hours, according to... a spokesperson for Israel’s Health Ministry. The Washington Post
Hamas has hinted that the hostages were executed because IDF troops were close by.
In a statement, the spokesman for the military wing of Hamas said that following Israel’s successful hostage rescue in Nuseirat in June, new protocols were given to terrorists guarding the abductees that they were to follow should Israeli troops approach. Times of Israel
Let's guess what those new "protocols" are.
And in case you've forgotten, today is day 333 in Israel.
Hostages by the numbers
at least what appears to be accurate...no one is completely sure
as of September 2, 2024
251 hostages taken by Hamas
including some who were already dead.
They took the bodies into Gaza and kept them.
An estimated 97 hostages, including 2 children under 5, remain.
Of those 97, 33 have been declared dead by Israel
64 hostages are believed to still be alive.
Grief in Israel and throughout the Jewish world is painfully palpable. The streets in Israel are crowded with protesters, demanding the government make a deal for the hostages. Everyone wants an end. Israelis believe, rightfully so, that their government has utterly failed them. It has. It has failed not only Israel, but world Jewry. We are all under attack now no matter where we are.
Once, we could point a finger at Hamas and blame them. We still can; they started this war and gee, what did they think was gonna happen? But now, Netanyahu and his evil sidekicks must take responsibility for their part in this ongoing debacle and fix it.
War is expensive....in blood, bodies, economics, and morals. Eventually, someone goes bankrupt. For the sake of Klal Yisrael, it cannot be us.
Rachel Goldberg Polin, Hersh's mother, speaks poignantly for all Israel in her son's eulogy.
You should listen to her.
"Now, I no longer have to worry about you.
I know you are no longer in danger."
In my heart, I know that could be one of my friends, my family, my neighbors, even me. I could be speaking about my child or grandchild snatched from a music festival, had an arm blown off by a grenade but managed to survive...only to be abused, tortured, and executed at close range.
Just because we are Jews.
Let's be real clear: this war isn't really about a strip of sand near the Mediterranean; it's about power and money, the Palestinian people be damned. Hamas will never just relinquish their stranglehold on Gaza or the West Bank. They don't give a rat's ass about their own people. They steal their humanitarian aid, their building supplies, their medicine, and their dignity to line their own pockets. For this war to really end, the Palestinians must rise up and throw off their own shackles. Blaming everyone else is not going to help them.
Y'know, when Jews began returning to the land in earnest during the 19th century, they had nothing but the money raised from their own communities. There was no humanitarian aid for malaria or infrastructure support from some NGO. Israel was build with sweat equity. Palestine had similar opportunities that went unused. Why is that the Jews' fault?
Noa Argamani is quite possibly the most recognizable face of October 7th. Screaming as she is hauled into Gaza on the back of a motorbike, we have witnessed her abduction over and over on tape, in photos, on posters world-wide. Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, who had been trying to protect her from the terrorists was also taken. His condition and whereabouts remain unknown at this time. But right now, Noa Argmani is finally with her terminally ill mother.
Let's be real clear about this: Ms. Argamani was NOT RELEASED by Hamas as some kind of humanitarian gesture. That is utter bullshit. She was rescued by the IDF from the Nurseirat home where she was imprisioned, enslaved by journalist Abdullah Aljamal, his physician father, and his family. Enslaved. That means she was held prisoner and required to work for the family. While Al Jazeera denies Aljamal was a reporter for them, he did have a profile on their web page, and published regular articles in The Palestine Chronicle , and seemed to have been a spokesperson for the Hamas-run Ministry of Labor. Think about this for a moment. This guy is reporting about Gaza and the treatment of the civilian population while he is holding a 26-year old university student hostage in his own home and using her as slave labor.
Ms. Argamani said she had been held in several locations, all seeming to be homes and flats, but never in the tunnels. Apparently, this is okay in Gaza....keeping hostages in your home as slave labor. And according to others who have been freed, sometimes as sex slaves.
Hamas claims 274 civilians were slaughtered in the raid to free Ms Argamani and three other hostages held at a separate location. Andrey Kozlov, 27; Shlomi Ziv, 41; and Almog Meir Jan, 22 were also rescued from a home in Nurseirat near to where Ms. Argamani was being held. But here's the thing: where does the Gaza Health Ministry get their instant body count from? No one actually knows. In a March 26th, 2024 analysis published in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Gaza Fatality Data Has Become Completely Unreliable,Gabriel Epstein observes:
In the first month of the war, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza relied on its existing collection system, made up primarily of hospitals and morgues, to certify each death. Starting in early November, however, hospitals in northern Gaza began to shut down or evacuate during the Israeli ground invasion, spurring the MOH to introduce a new, undefined methodology for counting fatalities: media reports. This methodology, which the MOH has rarely acknowledged publicly, accounts for the majority of fatalities reported over the past four months, surpassing the traditional collection system. A comparison of the two methodologies, using MOH reports and claims published by the Hamas-controlled Government Media Office (GMO), yields wildly different and irreconcilable results, indicating that the media reports methodology is dramatically understating fatalities among adult males, the demographic most likely to be combatants. This undercuts the persistent claim that 72 percent of those killed in Gaza are women and children—a problem that has worsened since it was first noted by a Washington Institute report in January.
The result is that MOH statistics do not appear to offer a reliable guide to the actual Palestinian death toll even by the “foggy” standards of normal wartime reporting. Journalists, analysts, and government officials need to be aware that the actual overall death toll may be significantly higher (or, less likely, lower) than what the MOH has reported; the demographic composition of these fatalities is certainly far different than what the MOH claims.
The inaccuracy of reporting is further exacerbated by Hamas's inability to separate combatants from civilians, which is practically impossible when you're using your civilian population as human shields. What exactly does Hamas think is going to happen? These people are trapped in the middle of a hot war. People will die.
And for the record, it's not like Hamas and Hezbollah aren't shooting missiles at Israel day in and day out. The wild fires in the north of Israel are the direct result of missile and drone and interceptions, according to The Jerusalem Post. This is an ongoing war being fought on several fronts. Let me repeat that: THIS IS AN ONGOING WAR.
On the other hand.....
AIPAC
For reasons I actually understand, Israel is expected to and is delivering aid to Gaza. Although I'm not a big AIPAC fan, this image and the article, Israel Is Working to Improve the Humanitarian Situation in Gaza, does a reasonably good job of illustrating the reality on the ground. No, the system is vastly imperfect, but it's more than other countries do in the middle of an active war. Do you see Russia sending aid to Ukraine? Yet, Israel sends thousands of tons of food, medicine, and fuel into Gaza knowing full well that much of it never reaches the civilian population so desperately in need. Because of the refusal of Hamas to ever build a functioning economy for the people of Gaza, they are reliant on others for their basic needs. And gee whiz, isn't it screwy that Israel is supplying much of those needs? That's the part I just don't get.
Pro-Hamas demonstrations increase in size, demands for the functional dismantling of Israel grow more strident, and many of us are left wondering how long we will be able to stay in the United States. And then, there's the corollary to that thought: once the Pro Hamas decides Feckless Felon is their candidate, and their growing influence is tossed behind him, how are they going to go up against the evangelical tide behind him? And when he and his minions manage to gut the Constitution, where are all those happy Pride people going to go to save their diminishing civil rights? I guess they never heard of the domino theory.
On October 7th, Israel was attacked not by an army, not by an air force, not by a navy, but by a roving band of terrorists who murdered kids at a music festival, people in their homes, parents in front of their children. Over 1,160 people were murdered in cold blood. Over 250 hostages ranging in age from 9 months old to 86 years old were abducted to Gaza.
6 months later, 134 hostages remain in Gaza, amongst them, 11 of are foreign nationals, 8 are American. No one really knows who is alive and who is dead. Shiri Bibas, and her sons, Ariel and Kfir, were claimed by Hamas to have been killed. Yarden, her husband and father of the boys, was taken separately and is thought to still be alive.
But no one knows for sure.
Let me repeat that: NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE.
Here's a fun-filled fact. Hamas could stop this war any time it wants. Piece o'cake. Israel has said it every day in every way. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES and the war stops. If Hamas released them tomorrow, the war would stop on a dime.
But that would be a problem for Hamas. They WANT to be victims. They want to blame everyone and every institution for their failure to establish a country. Being a victim is so much more fun. You don't have to do anything. You get to stand there and look pathetic while you spend every fucking dime to get to reinforce your tunnels and buy missiles to fire on civilians because no one thinks firing thousands and thousands of missiles on civilians who happen to be Jews is a problem.
IF Hamas released the hostages, countries across the globe, including Israel, the US, and maybe even a few Arab states, would be stepping up to help the Palestinians rebuild their country. Oops. Excuse me. It should BUILD an actual country since Hamas never bothered with an economy or a government before this. Now that the network of tunnels has been exposed, it would be harder to divert funds to rebuild that network while the civilian population is starving, right?
But screaming FREE PALESTINE doesn't really recognize that Palestine needs to be freed from Hamas, which is really the issue. But no one wants to talk about that part. Why would they? It would mean that the Palestinian people are opting for a real country. So far, that does not appear to be the case.
Insisting that Israel is committing genocide in Palestine is another piece of abject stupidity being funded by Islamist groups like ISIS, Iran, and Islamic Brotherhood. Allow me to disabuse you of that concept with numbers.
If Israel want to commit genocide against the Palestinians, it would've been over in a day or two. Okay? Clearly, that's neither their target nor their intent, but admitting that doesn't make for a good chant.
If Israel wanted to commit genocide against the Palestinians, the population of Gaza would not have grown exponentially since 2005. With a high birth rate (28 per 1000 people in Gaza. ) When Israel left Gaza in 2005, the population was 1.3 million. The most recent estimate is 2.1 million, not quite twice as many people as when Israel left.
Does Israel want to take Gaza back? Hell, no. They want Hamas out so the daily missile barrage will cease. And yes, it's still going on. See Newsweek.
Arab Israelis currently make up about 20% of Israel's population. Those who hold Israeli citizenship have the same legal rights as any other Israeli. Is it perfect? No. Are there problems and issues? Sure, just like minority populations in any other western country. But women fare far better in Israel than any other Arab nation.
Half Shekel coin issued by the Jewish rebels in 67–68 CE Letters are in Paleo-Hebrew.
Israel is the poster-child for DECOLONIZATION. After more than two thousand years of facing east toward Jerusalem to pray, standing at the remnant of Solomon's Temple, continuously living in the land, Jews began to buy back their traditional homeland from the Ottomans. Piece by piece, land was purchased, developed, farmed, and the seeds of an economy were sown. Hebrew, the language of the Bible, our holy books, and our liturgy was resurrected as our daily language, replacing Yiddish and Ladino and other dialects that once divided us. The first modern currency, Israeli Pound (or lira yisraelit,) officially reverted to the shekel, our traditional monetary unit,in 1980.
It's pretty widely established that the goal of Hamas is to obliterate Israel and remove all Jews from Israel and the globe. The ADL published Hamas in its own words:
Statements by Hamas officials make clear the terrorist organization’s commitment to destroying Israel and killing Jews and Israelis around the world.
Ismail Haniyeh in 2020: He explained that Hamas rejects ceasefire agreements by which, “Gaza would become Singapore,” preferring to remain at war with Israel until a Palestinian state is established from the River to the Sea: “We cannot, in exchange for money or projects, give up Palestine and our weapons. We will not give up the resistance... We will not recognize Israel, Palestine must stretch from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.”
Hamas official, Hamad Al-Regeb in an April 2023 sermon: He prayed for “annihilation” and “paralysis” of the Jews whom he described as filthy animals: “[Allah] transformed them into filthy, ugly animals like apes and pigs because of the injustice and evil they had brought about.” Al-Regeb also prayed for the ability to “get to the necks of the Jews.”
Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Saleh Al-Arouri in an August 2023 interview: He expressed Hamas’ desire for “total war” with Israel: “Therefore, we are convinced that if a total conflict begins, the airspace and seaports of this entity will be shut down, and they will not be able to live without electricity, water, and communications.”
Ahmad Abd Al-Hadi (Hamas representative in Lebanon) in an October 12, 2023 TV show laid out Hamas’ expectation that it would be Israel that would sue for peace and indicated that a ceasefire is part of Hamas’ overall strategy, but said that he was not at liberty to say what exactly Hamas has planned for the next step after a ceasefire. He also stated that October 7 had achieved its intended purpose of landing “a blow to the normalization (of relations between Israel and Arab countries).”
Hamas member, Ghazi Hamad on October 24, 2023: “Israel is a country that has no place on our land […] because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation.” (October 24, 2023, LBC TV (Lebanon)). He also vowed to repeat the October 7 attacks “time and again until Israel is annihilated,” and expressing a desire to “sacrifice martyrs” (referring to Gazan civilians) for Hamas’ ideological aim of destroying Israel.
In a speech before the International Union of Muslim Scholars in Doha on January 9, 2024, Ismaeel Haniyeh, chairman of Hamas's political bureau, called the October 7 massacre the “advanced [battle] front of the Ummah.” Calling for “financial jihad” (donations to Hamas) and “jihad of the teeth” (physical jihad), he asked the international audience, “Who wishes to invest in building the jihadist generation to liberate Jerusalem and to unite the blood of the Ummah with the blood of the people of Gaza, Jerusalem, and Palestine on the land of Palestine for its liberation and the liberation of Jerusalem?”
Statements by Hamas officials also make clear the terrorist organization’s disregard for the loss of civilian life not only in Israel but also in Gaza.
Hamas senior leader Khaled Mashal stated on October 19, 2023 that he views the current loss of civilian life in Gaza – brought about by Hamas' strategy of using human shields – as essential: “No nation is liberated without sacrifices... In all wars, there are some civilian victims. We are not responsible for them.”
Hamas senior leader Ismail Haniyeh, commenting on the loss of civilian life in Gaza on October 26, 2023: “The blood of the women, children and elderly […] we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.”
I've left the links intact in case you want to see more. Some of it is pretty terrifying, but you have to understand....it's not just about Israel and Jews. When they finish with us, they are planning to go after the rest of the non-Islamic world. And some of the Islamic world as well..the part that doesn't agree with their brand of sectarianism. (Gee, doesn't that sound a little like the Christofascists in our world? I thought so.)
Meanwhile, what's happening to the people of Gaza is reprehensible, made worse that Hamas refuses to do anything to help them as evidenced by the statements above. The targeting of WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN relief workers is equally inexcusable and the reaction of Israelis should drive home the point that they are not happy with how the war is being conducted by Netanyahu. Their collective anger with their own government should demonstrate that not all Israelis are supporting the government, and that like anything else in the Jewish world, there are enough divergent opinions for everyone to have one.
We are not sheep. We are not lemmings. We are not the Jews of 1930s Europe. We have reclaimed our homeland and we're not going anywhere, so disabuse yourself of that notion. What Hamas did was to declare war on us, and by G-d, they got one. Now they stand there blaming us for the destruction, yet no one is talking about the missiles and the tunnels, the suicide bombers or the threats to wipe us from the earth.
But they are the victims.
I don't think so.
The victims are the Israeli kids at a music festival, families at home in their beds, children who watched their parents murdered, and parents who watched their kids die.
The victims are the Palestinian children offered up as blood sacrifice to the gods of greed and power while their parents stood by and did nothing to stop Hamas from using them as human shields.
The victims are the Jewish kids on college campuses being attacked and covered in a hatred they did even know existed.
And the biggest victim of all?
Truth.
Newspapers don't print it, they spin it. TV presenters don't ask questions, they set traps for interviewees, then manipulate the footage. Politicians don't talk about what's really happening; they only talk about what will get them donations and votes.
We are knee deep in this bullshit and there isn't a clear path out.
And for the record, April 7th marked 6 months. Today, April 8th, 2024. was Day 183
