Powder Keg

By now you will have seen the attack by Hamas into Israel.  I don't need to describe what happened because you can't turn on any news channel and not see the horrific things done by the terrorists.  When something like this happens, I have a bit of difficulty in composing a post that would really, in the scheme of things, matter.  There are a million and one takes on what has happened by people who are a lot more clued in and smarter on the region than I am.  But if you're like me you've been reading a lot of analysis and first hand accounts as they have unfolded so I thought I'd try to capture a few of the better ones...at least from what I've seen.

If you've been watching at all, you probably know that this was a powder keg waiting to go off. Many have characterized today's actions by Hamas as Israel's 911 and I can't say I disagree.  A good description of the initial action is here.  If you doubt that impact or severity of the attack, here is a description by one of my professors at National War College.  She was a Major in the IDF and since coming to the U.S. has become one of the most astute and smart observer of national security issues.  She is an advisor to the highest levels of our government.

"I think it’s a mistake to look at today’s attack as just another twist in a 75 year old conflict. Likewise, it’s wrong to blame “extremists on both sides”. This is Israel’s 9/11. Proportionally to the size of the population, more Israelis were killed today in the unprecedented, multi-domain (land, sea and air) Hamas attack than Americans on that September morning. Hamas has crossed the Rubicon, attacking Israelis in their homes within the Green Line. As I’m typing this, the IDF hasn’t yet regained full control of sovereign Israeli territory. Hamas has taken a significant number of innocents hostage—Toddlers, elderly, teenagers. There’s no room here for “whataboutism”. The link to settler violence in the WB is tenuous at best.

There’s no Israeli occupation in Gaza—that ended with a unilateral withdrawal in 2005. If Iranian-backed Hamas didn’t kick the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in an armed coup in 2007, Gaza could’ve been Singapore and Oslo could’ve been a success. 

Israel will try to destroy Hamas just like the US did re Al Qaeda. We’re looking at the opening round of what will be a long war, with a high potential for escalation with Hezbollah, the West Bank, and Israel proper, where Palestinians are ~20% of the population."

As the scope of the attack unfolds, it really is pretty breathtaking that a terrorist group like Hamas could pull it off.  You have to ask how that can happen.  And by all accounts it can't happen.  They had to have a lot of help.  And that help came from Iran.  It is now emerging that there was a council of war between Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah a week or so ago to discuss and plan this operation.  As the largest sponsor of state terror, it is not remotely surprising that Iran's fingerprints are all over this.  Again, if you've been paying attention you probably know that in the last month or so Biden has okay'ed the transfer of $6 billion that was frozen by sanctions.  The Biden apologists are saying that this had nothing to do with the attack but of course that is bullshit.  Even the Iranians say they are free to do what they want with the money.  $6 billion buys a lot of rockets and terrorists.  There was also this story in the Times of Jerusalem.  It turns out that the Biden administration has been quietly funneling money to Hamas in Gaza.  Sending money to Gaza is not sending money to the Palestinian Liberation Army.  It's not sending money to people who need it.  It is sending money to Hamas.  Full stop.  

So Biden and his administration has been directly supporting Hamas and indirectly supporting the terrorists but giving money to Iran.  I would like to think it's unbelievable but sadly it seems pretty logical to me.  So this seems appropriate.

Another interesting analysis I came across was a post on X (Twitter) by Victor Davis Hanson.  If you're not familiar, he is a Stanford professor and an astute observer of politics and national security.  Here's his tweet and although a bit long, captures the whole mess pretty well.

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. 

Copied below is another account I came across this morning that captures in real time the shock and awe that Hamas caused in Israel starting yesterday.  From what I've read from other sources, this is a pretty good summary.  It is heartbreaking!

To all of my friends outside of Israel, I’d like to give you a fact-based update from the ground. Please do not look away. On Oct 7, 2023:

1. Thousands of Hamas rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, hitting cities as far north as Tel Aviv.

2. Thousands of Hamas terrorists breached the Gaza border in southern Israel. 

3. The Hamas terrorists went into civilian family homes and brutally slaughtered, as of this post, at least 600 babies, children, women, men, the elderly, and their caretakers. Houses were set ablaze, and entire families were burnt alive or butchered when they ran out.

4. The terrorists took at least a hundred Israeli babies, children, women, men, and the elderly into Gaza as hostages. The bodies of the dead were danced and spit on in the streets of Gaza in front of cheering crowds. Hostage Israeli children were beaten by Gazan children.

We know these facts because Hamas proudly recorded and live-streamed the events. 

Israel’s intelligence, military, and government were caught off guard in a tragically similar way to the Yom Kippur War, which happened on the same weekend 50 years ago. Even then, civilians were not the front line of defense. This nightmare, and this evil, is far worse. In the coming days, Israel will organize and respond in a manner never before seen. It will likely take months, but we will completely destroy the Hamas terror organization, return our hostages, and ensure this unfathomable tragedy can never occur again. Never again. 

This war will also come at a very heavy cost to innocent Palestinian civilians whom Hamas cowardly use as human shields. A historic human tragedy with no winners. Hamas is backed by Iran’s radical Islamic leadership, who share Hamas’s stated goal of the destruction of the State of Israel and the death of all Jews. They believe they are the winners because this war delays the normalization of Israeli-Saudi relations, representing an existential risk to their regime. Their loss will be made clear to them in due time.

As the war unfolds, your media, on cue, will flip the narrative to drive clicks and gaslight anti-zionism and anti-semitism. The term “disproportionate response” will run across breaking news tickers in heavy rotation. Your politicians will call for restraint and ceasefires. Your own judgment will transition from the horror of the facts above to innocent calls for love and peace between two warring armies. 

Hamas has proven that they can organize as an army, and we will deal with them accordingly, but what happened here isn't human. It's pure evil. If you support Hamas or their actions, you support terror. You support hate and darkness. You support brutal crimes against humanity. You don’t have to love or defend Israel, we’ll take care of that, I just ask you to check your soul and place in history. 10/7 is our 9/11. As you watch the news in the coming weeks, remember this before forming an opinion about Israel's unprecedented response.

Finally, if you've been reading at all you know I'm a big fan of Bari Weiss and The Free Press.  Here's a link of an interview she did today with the former Ambassador to the U.S. from Israel.  It's a pretty unvarnished view.

https://open.substack.com/pub/bariweiss/p/war-in-israel-michael-oren-worse-than-9-11?r=2lctb&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

So as the hours, days and weeks unfold, it's going to be brutal.  Here are my thoughts:

1. I feel for the innocent folks living in Gaza.  They have no place to go.  It is a terrorist stronghold and I fear that the IDF will flatten it.  And who could blame them.  If the terrorists are hiding in plain site amongst the civilian population, then the civilian population will pay the price.
2. There is no doubt that Iran is behind this whole thing and the Biden administration has done nothing to stop them or hold them accountable.  No matter what they say, they have blood on their hands.
3. Watch Hezbollah.  If they decide to jump in then things could become a lot worse.  They are bigger, better organized and better funded.  
4. Beyond everything else, we need to support Israel in whatever manner they need.  I won't go try to define what that is, but we need to be rock steady in responding to their requests.