. The FAFO factor often involves the highest of stakes. The people who support Hamas really ought to give their head a shake because most of their activities place them firmly in the useful idiot category. These excerpts from Susie Linfield‘s essay on called The Return of the Progressive Atrocity.
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The Cracked Crystal Ball II: Collective Punishment
So, apparently the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza had some number of its staff involved in the October 7 attack on Israel. This has resulted in numerous countries halting funding of UNRWA. The best estimates I can find are that somewhere in the range of a dozen employees of
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: 7,000 children, 60 journalists, 130 UN aid workers … enough?
On September 11th, 2001, the Islamist extremist group al-Qaeda carried out one of the most dramatic terrorist attacks in history on the United States. It knocked down two phallic symbols of U.S. capitalism and killed nearly 3,000 innocent people. The Americans could have sought out the perpetrators and brought them
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Is There Hope For Palestine
I wrote this in November 2007 on the hope for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The solution essentially comes down to understanding the most and least that each side can accept. We could argue forever whether the State of Israel should have been created the way it was but,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: I killed ten with my own hands! – The Bright Line Between Good and Evil – Sam Harris
This is the full article. I think it is important enough to not lose readers who will read an excerpt and stop there. Go to the The Free Press to get the link to the podcast – “In the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, it’s important to
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: How War In Gaza Should Change The Rules Of War
Current international law on war is largely derived from the fallout of WWII. It’s seen a little bit of trimming around the edges, but for the most part it is the child of WWII. That it has lasted over 70 years with only minimal change is in some respects creditable.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Canada’s Muted Response to the Hamas Terror Incursion
The response in the West to the Hamas terror attack and kidnapping of Israeli citizens is worth analyzing. Major Western institutions lent their support to the cause of “Free Palestine” and the like. It seems a bit off target to me, as better messaging would focus on Hamas freeing
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The two-state fallacy
The Hamas attack on Jewish settlers in Israel has evoked a cascade of sympathy around the world, for the victims and for Israelis and Jews generally, and rightly so. How could it not? But there are exceptions. One group of Israelis that deserves no sympathy is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Oxford Union Hosts Ben Shapiro on the Conflict in the Middle East
Sorry for the incovenience of having to go to youtube to watch the happenings at the Oxford Union. It was quite a raucous affair. Compare and contrast with the lecture at Cambridge where students as opposed to radicals came out and a productive mostly civil debate and conversation resulted. The
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: About That Hospital in Gaza
There’s been a lot of discussion back and forth about the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Hamas claims it was an Israeli bomb or missile attack, Israel claims it’s the result of a failed rocket launched from within Gaza. I have thoughts about this. Certainly, I agree that the site
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Are our hands clean?
One of the best articles I have read about the Hamas-Israel war is The New York Times “There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive” by Peter Beinart. Beinart is a Jewish-American professor of journalism and political science at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Jewish wisdom; Gentile folly
Reading The New York Times, as I do every morning (the world’s best newspaper), I have encountered a number of articles on the current hostilities in Palestine. I couldn’t help but notice that the articles with the most rational, most compassionate, and wisest analyses were written by Jews. This might
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Israel’s Assault on Gaza
In the days since Hamas’s violent rampage through southern Israel, one word that keeps popping up is “unprovoked.” A Biden administration official condemned “the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” while Mike Pence urged every American to “condemn the unprovoked and massive attack on Israel by terrorists in
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Terrorism—weapon of the weak?
Hamas’s invasion of Israel has once again brought attention to the Palestine problem. The routine of Israel oppressing the Palestinians while simultaneously stealing their land has once again been interrupted by outright war. For over 75 years our government, parroting the United States, declares that a Palestinian state can only
Continue readingHamas popularity surges
Whatever damage Israel did to Hamas during the recent war, it didn’t harm the group’s standing among the Palestinian people. Quite the contrary. According to a survey by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, the popularity of Hamas has surged in both Gaza and the West Bank to
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: New York Times-As Truce Holds, Dazed Gazans Get Down to Business
From the New York Times By FARES AKRAM and JODI RUDOREN GAZA — The banks reopened, the markets were crowded, workers began repairing downed electric lines and bulldozers cleared rubble blocking roads in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday as an open-ended cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants took hold. Life did not exactly return to normal, after a summer
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Chomsky on Israel’s Gaza assault – ‘hideous atrocity, sadistic, murderous’: video interview
In this edited Democracy Now interview Noam Chomsky graphically describes the vicious cycle of violence Israel visits time and again on Gaza… with particular reference to the most recent Israeli military assault dubbed Operation Protective Edge. It’s a hideous atrocity, sadistic, vicious, murderous – totally without any credible pretext. It’s
Continue readingIsrael vs. Hamas or Likud vs. Gaza—framing the issue
A major goal in a propaganda war is to frame the issue on your terms. For example, in labour disputes, businesses (and their political and media allies) often claim the argument is not with the workers but with the “union bosses.” The objective is to convince the public and perhaps
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: #DayofRage: For Gaza, Palestinians, History and Humanity
by: Obert Madondo Follow @Obiemad | Published Sat. Aug 9, 2014 “Die-In” protest in front of NDP Leader Tom Mulcair’s office in Montreal, held on Aug 5, 2014. (Photo: Darren Ell/FACEBOOK) Gaza, Palestine and you, freedom lovers everywhere, you’ve educated me. Now I know why they didn’t support indigenous Zimbabweans’ justified armed struggle
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