Category Archives: Middle East

GAZA CITY IS GONE: Yes, Ha’aretz; Americans See It. The World Sees It.

Criminal Injustice, Ethics, GAZA, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Just War, Middle East, Terrorism, The West, War

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An Israeli op-ed scribbler asks readers to ponder the heft of an ‘insight,’ in plain sight, at which he alone has arrived ~ilana

Anshel Pfeffer, at a Ha’aretz—a national Israeli newspaper—appears to have stumbled upon a scoop.  Or, so he thinks.

“Somehow,” writes Pfeffer (on Nov 15, 2023 6:58 pm IST), “despite all the eyes of the world being on Gaza, this has … been missed.”

What is it that Pfeffer’s gimlet eye alone has spied? What is this big thing that we dull dolts of America and the World have missed? A truly Homeric “D’oh!” is here in order.

Wide swaths of the city [Gaza] and its surroundings have already been destroyed, and it’s only a matter of weeks before the largest Palestinian city is rendered totally uninhabitable. … The IDF now sits on top of a mound of ruins that was once Gaza City. … Cities have been destroyed before, in the Middle East and across the world, in both ancient and recent history. But when this happens, it is a seismic event for nations…

An Israeli op-ed scribbler tells readers to ponder the heft of an ‘insight’—it’s in plain sight—at which he alone has arrived! Have you ever such solipsistic, self-important pomposity?

“We may be very near the point where there are more Israeli soldiers in Gaza City than Gazans, and the issue of trying to avoid more civilian casualties will no longer exist because all those who can will have left,” writes this obtuse individual.

Since Anshel believes he alone has stumbled on the ruins of Gaza City, circa November 2023; he wonders: “What will it mean to the world when it sees what happened?”

Gaza City is gone. And yes, Ha’aretz; the world has noticed. Americans have noticed. We see. You can’t gussy up what’s going on in Gaza

To wit, “U.S. support for Israel has declined in the month since Hamas’s incursion into Israel on October 7. The percentage of respondents who said that ‘the U.S. should support Israel’ when asked what role Washington should play in the war dropped from 41% in mid-October to 32% percent this week.” (Via Reuters/Ipsos)

*Screen pic courtesy Ha’artez

 

NEW HARD TRUTH PODCAST: How To Defeat Hamas And Stop The Carnage In Gaza

Argument, Foreign Policy, GAZA, Globalism, Individual Rights, Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Morality, Nationalism, Natural Law, Palestinian Authority, Terrorism, The West, War

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THE NEW HARD TRUTH PODCAST, with colleague David Vance, is “How To Defeat Hamas And Stop The Carnage In Gaza.”

We argue that needed was a smarter, more effective response that targets only the culprits of the October 7 slaughter, and not innocents. Such a response is outlined in detail. UK’s David Vance and I further discuss the idea that Netanyahu has desecrated the memory of the Oct. 7 martyrs, creating new martyrs in Gaza, via his crude response to the Hamas massacre. Like previous forays into Gaza, Hamas will NOT be seriously harmed and will reconstitute. The world’s sympathy has been squandered. In all circumstances, David and I both agree that the US/UK interference in the region is not helpful and that REGIONALISM ALWAYS BEATS GLOBALISM. We also agree that Hamas should be destroyed but the question is, ‘How is this is best achieved’?

To receive ilana’s essay on the topic, please add your email to ilana’s newsletter https://www.ilanamercer.com/mailing-list/ .

To support David, please bookmark his website DavidVance.Net

UPDATED (10/21/023): Gaza And The Meaning Of Mens Rea, Malice Aforethought, Or Intent

Bush, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Israel, Just War, Justice, Middle East, Morality, Russia, War

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If you know in advance that you will be killing thousands of civilians; you have, attached to your actions, malice aforethought, or mens rea, aka intent ~ilana

From the Ukraine-Russia conflict’s inception; your columnist wrote many an essay  (https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/uncle-sam-still-king-invaders-ukraine-realpolitik-wests-failure/) motivating against the Neocons, Neolibs and NATO Inching Us Closer To Nuclear War With Russia, via the Ukraine proxy war.

The rejection by Joe and his Uniparty accomplices of diplomacy, framed by myself as realpolitik, was my focus. “It’s Biblical, Zelensky,” I urged. “A Leader Who Fails To Haggle For The Lives Of His People” is a failed leader.

https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/biblical-zelensky-leader-fails-haggle-lives-people-failed/

I vehemently now protest the greenlighting of the razing of Gaza by Joe Biden and his Uniparty accomplices.

About “intent,” a bedrock of Western judicial philosophy and Jurisprudence, I said the following on the Hard Truth podcast last Tues (Oct. 10)  (https://rumble.com/v3oicx4-hamas-israel-and-the-anatomy-of-state-treason.html):

If you know in advance that you will be killing thousands of civilians; you have, attached to your actions, malice aforethought, or mens rea, aka intent.

Moreover, just pretend for the sake of argument that there is no way to kill the Hamas culprits other than via a ground invasion; why-oh-why would Israel throttle the supply of water, food and power to millions of Gazans, when Israel knows this will also kill thousands of civilians indirectly?

Israel has, sadly, squandered much of the goodwill generated by the heinous, diabolical, October 7 pogrom, executed by spawns of Satan.

BACKGROUND: “Hamas, Israel And The Anatomy Of State Treason”

* Screen capture credit here:
https://www.strategiccriminaldefence.com/faq/mens-rea-vs-actus-rea/

UPDATE (10/21/023): Yes, this is refreshing via Josh Paul (even though I don’t share his support for other incursions and foreign-policy “moral compromises”)—I didn’t know there were people in our bureaucracy who could speak English, much less write it and reason in it.

Paul, who worked for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, has resigned from this Biden-staffed bureau, because of its policy of transferring lethal weapons to be used, invariably, against civilians in Gaza. Paul recounted in interviews how he had been instrumental in drafting a cessation to arms transfers under Biden’s new Conventional Arms Transfer policy, which allegedly reconsidered “weapons sales to countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over the civilian toll of the war in Yemen.”

It was the policy of Donald Trump, as this columnist’s warned, in 2018, through weapons supplies to the Saudis, to enable “our bosom buddies the Saudi’s” in their “barricading of Yemeni ports. No aid gets through her hermetically sealed ports. Yemenis are dying. Some Twitter followers twittered with joy at the sight of starving Yemeni babies, like this one. Oh well, Yemeni babies can be sinister.”

Whatever one’s political sympathies, as I wrote here above, “If you know in advance that you will be killing thousands of civilians; you have, attached to your actions, malice aforethought, or mens rea, aka intent.”

The same obtains if you are a third party, aiding and abetting the carnage that is collective punishment. These are natural, immutable laws. They attached to George Bush’s actions in Iraq. (https://www.ilanamercer.com/2002/09/why-so-many-americans-don-t-support-attacking-iraq/ The Hague ought to have long since nabbed him. They apply to the razing of Gaza following Hamas’ monstrous mass murder on October 7.

UPDATED (10/14): NEW COLUMN: Hamas, Israel And The Anatomy Of State Treason

Ethics, Foreign Policy, Iran, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Military, Morality, Neoconservatism, Relatives, Terrorism, The State, War

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NEW ESSAY, “Hamas, Israel And The Anatomy Of State Treason,” has been published at The New American, The Unz Review and WND.COM. As you see from its headings—LOW TECH INVASION, MAGA AND ISRAEL, TREASON, DEPLOYING GIZMOS TO GAZA, GEOPOLITICS, TREASON IN THE HOMELAND—it is a wide-ranging analysis contextualized to the American homeland. This analysis is of the backdrop to the treasonous abrogation of Israeli citizens’ rights to life, liberty and property, by the security entities, the IDF and the Israeli intelligence community, who were entrusted to uphold these natural, G-d-given rights.

READ IT NOW ON IlanaMercer.com.

https://www.ilanamercer.com/2023/10/hamas-israel-and-the-anatomy-of-state-treason/

Excerpt:

… TREASON

Witnessed in Israel on October 7 was the utter forsaking by the State of its most elementary—and only—obligations to the citizenry: Defend their natural rights to life, liberty and property.

Seventy-two hours on, and a top banana for the Israeli Defense Forces was blaming Hamas for duping Israeli “experts.” D’oh! Why of course: After all, it is expected that a blood-lusting cabal of satanical sub-humans would apprise targets of its comings-and-goings.

Ok, but if you’re deaf and dumb, why not heed Egyptian intelligence, whose officials now claim Israel ignored repeated warnings that “something big” was going down? Google the phrase “What went wrong?” and you’ll discover that the patsy press has received Israeli officialdom’s memo. The efforts of the State to deflect blame, to reject responsibility for treason, have begun. Thus was Danny Dannon, another top banana, recounting to BBC’s HARDtalk what terrible characters are the Hamasniks. D’oh! Again.

Stendhal, a French writer, said there was no hypocrisy in mathematics. Hamas is mathematically honest about what it wants to do to all Jews.

It is the custodians of Israeli security whose calculus is off. If you correctly think Hamas is so horrible, why had Israel opted to deploy gizmos to the border with Gaza?

DEPLOYING GIZMOS TO GAZA

As your columnist divulged in 2008, Israel opted for “Robo-Snipers” instead of flesh-and-blood men and women. The nation’s “19- and 20-year-old soldiers” were still deployed to the front—but virtually. They sit at a safe distance “behind computer screens,” waiting on “approval by a commanding officer” before “pushing the kill button.”

Yes, Israel automated the process of defense against Gaza, creating a set of “auto kill-zones” “by networking together remote-controlled machine guns, ground sensors, and drones along the 60-kilometer border.”

Gizmos are useless against the stuff of Gaza—and Latin America, for that matter. In 2005, with great enthusiasm from the Israeli Left, Gaza was given over to the dogs of war, Hamas and their avid constituents. Despite the fertile, coastal land they were handed, the precious ground water they sit on, and generous international assistance, the place soon went to the dogs. Egypt, Jordan and Israel are all terrified to open their borders to the seething snake pit that is Gaza.

It matters not whether you think the cauldron of cruelty that is Gaza created its inhabitants or whether it’s the obverse. The reality is that every nation in the region fears the Gazans. Nobody in the region wants immigrants from Gaza—although given the US Uniparty’s appetite for progressive, smug preening (aka treason); one can envisage Gaza being air lifted to America by the same Special Ops forces who rushed to import Afghanistan. In any event, hearth and home are best defended by men, military or militia, on the ground, carrying guns and grenades.

Besides, all defense systems are fallible and finite in their capacity. Air-defense systems fail. The Russians have the best possible air-defense system, yet they too, on occasion, are overwhelmed by barrages of British cruise missiles supplied to a flailing Ukraine.

If military experts were doing the work currently done by neophyte chicklet reporters; they’d explain, in newspapers like The Hill, that no defense system can intercept 3000 missiles lobbed all at once. Instead of military experts, alas, we have girls cutting-and-pasting from Wikipedia about Israel’s Iron Dome air missile defense system.

Digital docility was never going to ward off a hissing enclave like Gaza, where people, young and old, writhe in hate (watch the children of Gaza bully a Jewish little boy held captive).

GEOPOLITICS …

… Not unlike the United States, Hamas aims to disrupt any productive, cooperative alliances arising out of the forging of regional powers in the Middle East, and has thus made its malign presence felt. …

READ THE REST … “Hamas, Israel And The Anatomy Of State Treason” can now be read, free of pop-up ads, satanical antisemitism, and other such grotesque spam, on ILANAMercer.com.  A warrior is unafraid of Little Men and their impotent hatred.