Winston Churchill, who understood you can never
negotiate with mass murderers
My essay yesterday on the present unstable world situation — sparked by the murderous attack by Hamas on Israel — opened with a noteably pessimistic conclusion:
In the past week, it seems more and more that appeasement is the watchword of the day.
I had come to this conclusion by citing two unfolding events, first Israel’s seemingly endless delays in initiating its promised invasion of Gaza to destroy Hamas, and second, the apparent decision by Republicans in the House of Representatives to choose as their pick for speaker Tom Emmer, the only man running who denied any voter tampering and election fraud in the 2020 election and who also had been a spokesman for an organization funded by George Soros, making him clearly an untrustworthy person to lead conservatives.
One day later there are signs that my pessimism might have been premature. First, the Republicans in the House finally came together today to elect a speaker, choosing Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), a man who appears not only wholly different than Emmer but in fact almost all Republican speakers since Newt Gingrich. Unlike the moderates of the past three decades, Johnson is a strongly conservative man (pro-life, opposes the queer agenda, skeptical of too much aid to the Ukraine). Maybe the best sense of his fighting spirit is gained from his comments in 2020, when he actually noted Nancy Pelosi’s violation of the law when she tore up the original of Donald Trump’s state of the union speech in January 2020.
Thus, Republican voters might finally have a speaker in the House who is more allied with their goals than the corrupt goals of the establishment based in Washington, DC. The battle itself over the speakership further suggests that the establishment itself is losing power over the Republican Party. In the end the only viable candidates that remained were all Trump supporters who had repeatedly opposed the endless continuing resolutions that the Republican leadership has forever given to its Democratic Party allies.
We shall see however. In matters of politics it always pays to never get too enthusiastic about any positive development, as for the past six decades the positive has too often quickly turned negative.
Next there is the situation in Israel. While the invasion of Gaza remains on hold, there are strong signs the delay is definitely temporary, that though Biden officials really want to convince Israel not to do it, Israel is not budging, and so the U.S. is now being forced to work with it to help make that invasion a success. For example, there are reports that the present delay is now only so that the U.S. can install its missile defense in order to supposedly defend any American troops that might be sent to the region. That this defense system will also protect Israel and its own soldiers and people was not mentioned, though this is a fact as well.
In addition, it appears the mood in Israel is unchanged and implacable. Its people will not accept compromise in this matter. They want Gaza invaded and Hamas destroyed utterly, despite whatever horrible cost this action might entail. They don’t want to kill all Gazans, but they have no stomach for any negotiation that allows its murderous leaders any chance of escape.
To illustrate this determination consider Israel’s reaction to the speech on October 24, 2023 of the UN’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, where he appeared to lay the blame for the Hamas massacre on Israel.
“It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Guterres said at a UN Security Council meeting on the Israel-Hamas war, which erupted when the terror group ravaged Israeli border communities, killing some 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians.
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished.”
Guterres’ words here however are a lie. Nothing he describes has been occurring in Gaza. Israel exited Gaza unilaterially almost two decades ago, giving it back to the people there with no strings attached, even forcing Israelis to give up their settlements and businesses there. There has been no occupation of Gaza by Israel since then.
Hamas and the citizens of Gaza — given this opportunity to build their own free nation — chose instead to make bombs, fire rockets, and finally on October 7th to murder more than a thousand Israelis, including torturing and killing women, children, and babies.
In response to Guterres’ dishonest attack, Israel has not only demanded his resignation, it has now decided to no longer issue entrance visas to UN officials.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan says the country will deny visas to UN officials after remarks by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that appeared to justify Hamas’s brutal assault on Israel. “Due to his remarks we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives,” Erdan tells Army Radio. “We have already refused a visa for Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths,” Erdan said. “The time has come to teach them a lesson.”
In other words, Israel is no longer interested in the opinions of these apologists for murder. It will make its own decisions, and that decision is to fight.
In fact, the increasing outrage everywhere for these apologists (who can be found everywhere in academia, Hollywood, politics, and the international community) has been most refreshing. These quislings might still be in positions of power, but increasingly larger percentages of the public are no longer accepting their efforts to excuse barbarism and savagery. Either the apologies will stop, or the apologists will have to find other work.
As always, wisdom demands we once again temper this optimism with reality. Even as a strong defiance to the modern corrupt ruling class seems to be rising, a recent poll revealed the horrible fact that more than half of all 18-24-year-olds in the U.S. believe the recent mass murder of Israeli citizens by Hamas was justified. That same poll found that almost half of those polled — with large majorities of those under 54 — think Israel still occupies Gaza, something that has not been true since 2005.
In other words, the younger generation is both ignorant and considers mass murder an acceptable tactic in politics. With numbers like this, it will be difficult for any good news to last. The future still looks grim, unless the good (and educated) people in the world rise up with courage and fight back, without hesitation.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/has-the-tide-actually-turned/
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