@10:32, Prayers. Port media contact (and former editor of ours) has a daughter and grandchildren living there, they love Israel & visit them frequently (they’re all observant Jews, daughter studying theology & son is a rabbi on the East Coast). I’ve been thinking about them, concerned but hopefully daughter & family are safe. -dj
Also reminded by another co-worker that our former biz editor (Muslim) has family in the Mideast as well. And Israel will surely respond to these attacks.
How protected we have been here in the U.S. from the world’s wars. -dj
Yesterday morning, this article was mentioned in some tweets that were shared (at 8:12am). After reading the article for myself, I wondered if the angry tweeters who were against it even bothered to read it. One referred to it as “social justice Marxism,” and it was portrayed as blaming the descendants of the slave owners mentioned.
But it was not. In fact, the woman profiled specifically said that she does not hold the descendants responsible for the choices of their ancestors. It was in fact an interesting article, profiling how well each family fared throughout the years. And yes, the black family fared pretty well themselves.
Tone deaf clowns, who by the way used our tax dollars to bankroll Hamas’ efforts.
Team Biden made a Day 1 decision to pour millions of dollars into Hamas areas. Internal emails show them saying it would boost Hamas terrorism, but they did it anyway.
This is the worst attack I’ve seen since moving to Israel 9 years ago—Israeli civilians captured by Hamas terrorists, Israeli towns overrun by Hamas. IDF was caught completely unprepared for this sneak invasion. Preparing now for all-out war. Terrifying. https://t.co/vw882OSgHP
Iran literally put out a statement saying that nobody could tell them how to spend the $6 billion ransom money that the Biden Administration gave to them. So you can stop with this "it can only be spent on" bullsh*t. https://t.co/mW1XZqh5ju
And the useless UN and White House will quickly condemn Israel for defending themselves.
Since this morning, the State of Israel has been at war. Our first objective is to clear out the hostile forces that infiltrated our territory and restore the security and quiet to the communities that have been attacked.
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 7, 2023
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Citizens of Israel, We are at war, not in an operation or in rounds, but at war. This morning, Hamas launched a murderous surprise attack against the State of Israel and its citizens. We have been in this since the early morning hours. pic.twitter.com/C7YQUviItR
MSNBC's @AymanM: Netanyahu leads "the most far, extremist, Jewish nationalist government that it has existed … What are you going to do? Are you going to re-occupy the Gaza Strip? Repopulate it with settlements? Are you going in there to try to kill every Hamas leader? They’ve… pic.twitter.com/QpZFaa0O9d
1. Give Israel whatever it asks for to kill terrorists, including arms and access to American intelligence. 2. Expel every Palestinian passport holder in the United States. Give them 48 hours to get the hell out. 3. End every cent of aid to any…
“1. Give Israel whatever it asks for to kill terrorists, including arms and access to American intelligence.
2. Expel every Palestinian passport holder in the United States. Give them 48 hours to get the hell out.
3. End every cent of aid to any Palestinian organization and institution.
4. Stop giving Iran money.”
Biden et al is getting what he wanted: 1. A stronger Iran 2. Invasion of Israel 3. Distraction from Domestic Issues 4. Southern Border 5. etc…#IsraelUnderAttack#Iran Semper Fi
🚨 BREAKING NEWS: Iran’s Parliament is Chanting “Death to America!” AS THEY LAUNCH TERRORIST ATTACKS ON ISRAEL & OTHER PLACES ACROSS THE GLOBE 🚨
⚠️THE US GOVERNMENT, THROUGH THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, IS TECHNICALLY FUNDING THIS OPERATION AS THEY JUST SENT $6 BILLION TO IRAN ⚠️ pic.twitter.com/Tx3EPfpIF2
Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians—one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?
Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians—one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?
And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands?
a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies—the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking. Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement.
b) Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?). And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).
c) Hamas may have reckoned that recent Israeli turmoil and mass leftist street protests over proposed reforms of the Israeli Supreme Court had led to permanent internal divisions and thus a climate of domestic distraction if not an erosion of deterrence.
But, more importantly, in a larger sense the Biden administration has contributed both to the notion that Hamas was a legitimate Middle East player, and to the perception that the U.S. was backing away from its traditional support for Israel—to the delight of Hamas—based on the following inexplicable policies:
1) In February Secretary of State Blinken had bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the PLA cancelled by Trump, but cumulatively had transferred $1 billion—even as Palestinian authorities bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel).
And millions of American dollars also went into Gaza, run by Hamas—despite the Biden administration’s efforts to keep mostly quiet the resumption of such inexplicable support. In this regard, note the current shameful State-Department (“U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”) website news release that was posted after today’s attack. It ended with this quite embarrassing, morally equivalent admonition:
“We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”
“All sides?” “Refrain from retaliatory attacks?”
So Israel is the moral equivalent of terrorists executing civilians and brutalizing their corpses? And the IDF then is not supposed to retaliate against these killers?
This Biden State Department insanity cannot stand. So expect some apparatchik to take down this Munich-like posting as soon as possible.
2) The Biden administration had recently released some $6 billion to Iran through a prison swap deal that saw South Korea hand over embargoed Iranian money to Qatar—despite Tehran’s increased anti-Israeli rhetoric and its loud brag about the escalation. We should assume money for rockets (Hamas claims they have launched 5,000, and have received 100,000 of them via the Damascus airport) and weapons in general for Hamas were supplied by Iran, which again is likely the chief catalyst for this surprise attack.
3) Almost immediately, after his inauguration Biden mobilized to resume the bankrupt Iran deal. And in unhinged fashion he appointed the anti-Israeli bigot, pro-Iranian journalist Robert Malley as America’s chief negotiator. Note that Malley is now under FBI investigation for security breaches, involving disclosing classified U.S. documents and also for allegedly helping pro-Iranian activists and propagandists land influential billets inside the U.S. government.
In short, there was a general Hamas and Iranian perception that the Biden administration had resumed the discredited Obama madness of empowering Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. This discredited agenda was to “balance” the power of Israel and the moderate Arab Gulf governments to achieve “creative tension”, exacerbated by Biden’s loathing of the government of Benjamín Netanyahu (who has been snubbed by Biden and never invited for an official visit).
Note as well that the Biden administration has siphoned off key weapons and munitions from stockpiles inside Israel to transfer them to Ukraine. The so-called “War Reserve Ammunition—Israel” is all but depleted of just the sorts of weapons needed in the present crisis.
In this regard is there not a pattern here?
Upon the ascension of Biden and his woke military agendas, we saw the following: the complete humiliation of the U.S. in Kabul in its most shameful flight in 50 years and greatest abandonment of equipment in its history; followed by Vladimir Putin’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine; followed by China’s new belligerence and escalating threats to Taiwan; followed by Turkey’s new de facto alliance with Russia and recent drone encounter with the U.S. air force in Syria; followed by the Hamas/Iranian inspired attack on Israel—with more to come unfortunately.
And will Biden finally get the message from the attacks on the Ukraine and Israeli borders, that borders matter and we too are being invaded, with the encouragement of the Mexican government and to the advantage of the cartels whose fentanyl exports kills 100,000 Americans a year?
What to expect in Israel?
Expect the following: the usual Hamas/terrorist selling and/or execution of Israeli hostages, the use of Israeli hostages as “human shields” in Gaza, the bargaining/sale of the remains of Israeli dead, occasional killings of Jews inside Israel by Arabs who falsely believe there will be a winning Middle East-wide existential war against Israel. And finally, a devastating Israeli counter-response that will eventually earn a U.S. rebuke.
What should the U.S. instead do?
It should quit talking to Iran and restore full sanctions against it. It should cut off all aid immediately to all the Palestinians. It should undertake a 1973-like massive arms lift of key munitions to Israel and warn Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East not to intervene or else, given that Israel will need several weeks to deal with Hamas and Gaza. And if it shows any hesitation or weakness, other terrorist groups will opportunistically jump in.”
Re: “She doesn’t, but NBC clearly did in their reporting.” In reading the article, I did not see the writer laying blame. In which part did you see that?
I thought the article was interesting, Kizzie. We learn much from history. I found the part about the differences in schools interesting, too. I had an uncle who protested that the school his children attended was structured more toward the assumption of the graduates going on to attend a vocational school in the future, while those on the other side of town would attend college. That high school had more professionals living there, while the other school was in a more industrial area. Race was not an issue.
Why people do things varies, but some can make it seem like they are doing it for whatever fits their agenda. Some sacrificed much just to teach former slaves how to succeed in a way they needed to succeed. The same for Native Americans. Others exploited people for their own benefit. We can find out motives to some extent by the writings and art of the era. Most times people have mixed motives. We can be blind to our own motives.
We cannot look back on history and judge people by today’s standards. or think anyone’s children should pay for the sins of the parents or grandparents etc. Forgiveness is a blessing, but so is acknowledging wrong and pain. The saddest people, IMO, are those who exploit others by encouraging unforgiveness, greed and division today.
I did not see that in the article, although I suppose the statistics of whole groups having benefited by slavery might be used for that purpose. I suppose that is like assuming a whole generation or race is monolithic. Not that I studied the article. I just read it.
The fact that it was even mentioned is a tell Kizzie.
There was no need to include it, it’s irrelevant what his ancestors did, yet it was. The sole purpose of that was to slam the Republican Congressman. Had he been a Democrat, it would have been cut out by editors.
“A Hamas spokesperson told the BBC that the militant group had backing from its ally, Iran, for its surprise attacks on Israel” https://t.co/HsP4xBw6Nn
AJ – I beg to differ with you. Finding out that a descendant of the people mentioned in the article is a public person is indeed relevant, as a matter of interest, not blame. If that descendant had instead been a famous actor or author, that would also have been a point of interest.
~ The assault on America’s closest Middle East ally is also a warning about how dangerous the world is becoming. As U.S. power and will recede, bad actors feel empowered to fill the vacuum. American isolationists on the right and left may wish to look away, but the U.S. can’t dodge the consequences.
Refugees from socialist failure in the Americas are flooding over the U.S. border, and sooner or later the U.S. will become a military target. The consequences of post-Cold War complacency are coming fast and furious. ~
How weak the U.S. must appear to the world now — divided, our military preparation status anemic at best, the nation’s will divided and its citizens too angry and too busy arguing amongst themselves to even notice what’s going on in the world surrounding them. -dj
Wandering Views 
Israel being attacked on a holiday is probably the most significant.
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@10:32, Prayers. Port media contact (and former editor of ours) has a daughter and grandchildren living there, they love Israel & visit them frequently (they’re all observant Jews, daughter studying theology & son is a rabbi on the East Coast). I’ve been thinking about them, concerned but hopefully daughter & family are safe. -dj
LikeLiked by 2 people
Also reminded by another co-worker that our former biz editor (Muslim) has family in the Mideast as well. And Israel will surely respond to these attacks.
How protected we have been here in the U.S. from the world’s wars. -dj
LikeLiked by 3 people
Who let the dog out? The real is certainly giving that dog a nice walk.
mumsee
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Yesterday morning, this article was mentioned in some tweets that were shared (at 8:12am). After reading the article for myself, I wondered if the angry tweeters who were against it even bothered to read it. One referred to it as “social justice Marxism,” and it was portrayed as blaming the descendants of the slave owners mentioned.
But it was not. In fact, the woman profiled specifically said that she does not hold the descendants responsible for the choices of their ancestors. It was in fact an interesting article, profiling how well each family fared throughout the years. And yes, the black family fared pretty well themselves.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/maryland-woman-learns-ancestors-enslaved-congressmans-ancestors-rcna118678?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma&taid=651e26c147c6bc0001175f97&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
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She doesn’t, but NBC clearly did in their reporting.
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Tone deaf clowns, who by the way used our tax dollars to bankroll Hamas’ efforts.
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And the useless UN and White House will quickly condemn Israel for defending themselves.
It’s time for Israel to end the terrorist Hamas once and for all.
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MSNBC of course defends the terrorist aggressors.
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“1. Give Israel whatever it asks for to kill terrorists, including arms and access to American intelligence.
2. Expel every Palestinian passport holder in the United States. Give them 48 hours to get the hell out.
3. End every cent of aid to any Palestinian organization and institution.
4. Stop giving Iran money.”
LikeLike
Inept and unfit leadership has consequences.
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Worth your time, from VDH.
“A 50th Anniversary War?
Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians—one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?
And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands?
a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies—the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking. Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement.
b) Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?). And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).
c) Hamas may have reckoned that recent Israeli turmoil and mass leftist street protests over proposed reforms of the Israeli Supreme Court had led to permanent internal divisions and thus a climate of domestic distraction if not an erosion of deterrence.
But, more importantly, in a larger sense the Biden administration has contributed both to the notion that Hamas was a legitimate Middle East player, and to the perception that the U.S. was backing away from its traditional support for Israel—to the delight of Hamas—based on the following inexplicable policies:
1) In February Secretary of State Blinken had bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the PLA cancelled by Trump, but cumulatively had transferred $1 billion—even as Palestinian authorities bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel).
And millions of American dollars also went into Gaza, run by Hamas—despite the Biden administration’s efforts to keep mostly quiet the resumption of such inexplicable support. In this regard, note the current shameful State-Department (“U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”) website news release that was posted after today’s attack. It ended with this quite embarrassing, morally equivalent admonition:
“We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”
“All sides?” “Refrain from retaliatory attacks?”
So Israel is the moral equivalent of terrorists executing civilians and brutalizing their corpses? And the IDF then is not supposed to retaliate against these killers?
This Biden State Department insanity cannot stand. So expect some apparatchik to take down this Munich-like posting as soon as possible.
2) The Biden administration had recently released some $6 billion to Iran through a prison swap deal that saw South Korea hand over embargoed Iranian money to Qatar—despite Tehran’s increased anti-Israeli rhetoric and its loud brag about the escalation. We should assume money for rockets (Hamas claims they have launched 5,000, and have received 100,000 of them via the Damascus airport) and weapons in general for Hamas were supplied by Iran, which again is likely the chief catalyst for this surprise attack.
3) Almost immediately, after his inauguration Biden mobilized to resume the bankrupt Iran deal. And in unhinged fashion he appointed the anti-Israeli bigot, pro-Iranian journalist Robert Malley as America’s chief negotiator. Note that Malley is now under FBI investigation for security breaches, involving disclosing classified U.S. documents and also for allegedly helping pro-Iranian activists and propagandists land influential billets inside the U.S. government.
In short, there was a general Hamas and Iranian perception that the Biden administration had resumed the discredited Obama madness of empowering Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. This discredited agenda was to “balance” the power of Israel and the moderate Arab Gulf governments to achieve “creative tension”, exacerbated by Biden’s loathing of the government of Benjamín Netanyahu (who has been snubbed by Biden and never invited for an official visit).
Note as well that the Biden administration has siphoned off key weapons and munitions from stockpiles inside Israel to transfer them to Ukraine. The so-called “War Reserve Ammunition—Israel” is all but depleted of just the sorts of weapons needed in the present crisis.
In this regard is there not a pattern here?
Upon the ascension of Biden and his woke military agendas, we saw the following: the complete humiliation of the U.S. in Kabul in its most shameful flight in 50 years and greatest abandonment of equipment in its history; followed by Vladimir Putin’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine; followed by China’s new belligerence and escalating threats to Taiwan; followed by Turkey’s new de facto alliance with Russia and recent drone encounter with the U.S. air force in Syria; followed by the Hamas/Iranian inspired attack on Israel—with more to come unfortunately.
And will Biden finally get the message from the attacks on the Ukraine and Israeli borders, that borders matter and we too are being invaded, with the encouragement of the Mexican government and to the advantage of the cartels whose fentanyl exports kills 100,000 Americans a year?
What to expect in Israel?
Expect the following: the usual Hamas/terrorist selling and/or execution of Israeli hostages, the use of Israeli hostages as “human shields” in Gaza, the bargaining/sale of the remains of Israeli dead, occasional killings of Jews inside Israel by Arabs who falsely believe there will be a winning Middle East-wide existential war against Israel. And finally, a devastating Israeli counter-response that will eventually earn a U.S. rebuke.
What should the U.S. instead do?
It should quit talking to Iran and restore full sanctions against it. It should cut off all aid immediately to all the Palestinians. It should undertake a 1973-like massive arms lift of key munitions to Israel and warn Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East not to intervene or else, given that Israel will need several weeks to deal with Hamas and Gaza. And if it shows any hesitation or weakness, other terrorist groups will opportunistically jump in.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Re: “She doesn’t, but NBC clearly did in their reporting.” In reading the article, I did not see the writer laying blame. In which part did you see that?
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I thought the article was interesting, Kizzie. We learn much from history. I found the part about the differences in schools interesting, too. I had an uncle who protested that the school his children attended was structured more toward the assumption of the graduates going on to attend a vocational school in the future, while those on the other side of town would attend college. That high school had more professionals living there, while the other school was in a more industrial area. Race was not an issue.
Why people do things varies, but some can make it seem like they are doing it for whatever fits their agenda. Some sacrificed much just to teach former slaves how to succeed in a way they needed to succeed. The same for Native Americans. Others exploited people for their own benefit. We can find out motives to some extent by the writings and art of the era. Most times people have mixed motives. We can be blind to our own motives.
We cannot look back on history and judge people by today’s standards. or think anyone’s children should pay for the sins of the parents or grandparents etc. Forgiveness is a blessing, but so is acknowledging wrong and pain. The saddest people, IMO, are those who exploit others by encouraging unforgiveness, greed and division today.
I did not see that in the article, although I suppose the statistics of whole groups having benefited by slavery might be used for that purpose. I suppose that is like assuming a whole generation or race is monolithic. Not that I studied the article. I just read it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The fact that it was even mentioned is a tell Kizzie.
There was no need to include it, it’s irrelevant what his ancestors did, yet it was. The sole purpose of that was to slam the Republican Congressman. Had he been a Democrat, it would have been cut out by editors.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, well, well……
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It’s time to end Hamas.
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AJ – I beg to differ with you. Finding out that a descendant of the people mentioned in the article is a public person is indeed relevant, as a matter of interest, not blame. If that descendant had instead been a famous actor or author, that would also have been a point of interest.
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From the WSJ editorial:
~ The assault on America’s closest Middle East ally is also a warning about how dangerous the world is becoming. As U.S. power and will recede, bad actors feel empowered to fill the vacuum. American isolationists on the right and left may wish to look away, but the U.S. can’t dodge the consequences.
Refugees from socialist failure in the Americas are flooding over the U.S. border, and sooner or later the U.S. will become a military target. The consequences of post-Cold War complacency are coming fast and furious. ~
-dj
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How weak the U.S. must appear to the world now — divided, our military preparation status anemic at best, the nation’s will divided and its citizens too angry and too busy arguing amongst themselves to even notice what’s going on in the world surrounding them. -dj
LikeLiked by 4 people