The final word hasn’t been spoken until ilana speaks her mind. Another textbook lesson here: Never flinch from the truth; never elide inconvenient facts. Gather it all together and then apply first principles. I always learn something new from her.

To wit: The IDF just another “unthinking,” lazy , and corrupt standing Army? Well, I mean, like many Americans of my age (never mind what), I still thought of the IDF as Ari ben Canaan and Moshe Dayan (very popular with Vietnam-era conservatives) and Dan Shomron and Ariel Sharon (the Israeli Stonewall?). But spades are spades, and the IDF’s failure in the initial stages of the attack skew heavily toward lese-majeste.

Dreadful as this business is, do we really need to take a side, other than The Donald’s take on Ukraine: “I just want people to stop dying.” As ilana demonstrates, it’s terrible the carnage among Gazan citizens, but they have a history of troublemaking and voting for terrorists. If the Egyptians and the Jordanians don’t find them a particularly savory lot, why should we? And Israel? There was great sympathy on October 7th, but their revenge is straight out of the Churchill playbook–and he got it from Grant and Sherman. Can we condone such a response?

I take the America First–as opposed to American–position on this matter. I hate it for the victims on both sides. I think the treatment of Palestinians is criminal. But I also think Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself. From an America First perspective, the most alarming thing has been the huge stateside protest. I hadn’t realized how many barbarians are inside the gates. Jews in New York–New York!!–were told to shelter in place the other day. A people who have for years flourished, if not dominated The Big Apple, and now they’ve got to be cautious about going outside. Wokeness and open borders (or do I repeat myself?) are a toxic cocktail, no?

That’s about all I’ve got. A position. Otherwise, I say it’s not our fight and I hope we stay out of it.

But that train’s already left the station. A lot of money will be spent. Good chance more American lives will be lost. We’ll have some ‘splainin to do our Arab “allies,” the ones who buy so many Herc’s and F-16s. Israel will be lucky if they survive. The rest of us will be lucky if our leaders stop short of World War III.

I’ll bet you one thing, though: America’s about to take in a great multitude of Gazan refugees. The more the merrier. The sooner the better for the current regime, who are no doubt already trying to figure out how to get them as many mail-in ballots as they can for next November.

Thanks for doing what you can, ilana.