Judging a Message By Its Messenger America's Partisan Cognitive Catastrophe

As I noted in our book, The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex: Long before Covid arrived, I’d joked with friends that if the ever boasting and self-promoting President Trump discovered the cure for cancer, his detractors would rather forgo the treatment than acknowledge he’d done something of value for humanity. It’s probably an inevitable outcome of America’s two-party system that any president may become the object of hyperbolic loathing. In the nineties, Republicans obsessed about President Clinton’s faults, real and perceived. In 2003, the columnist and psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer coined the expression Bush Derangement Syndrome as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush.” During the presidency of Donald J. Trump this syndrome became so virulent that it created a strangely binary posture in public affairs. If Trump expressed even mild enthusiasm for a policy, person, or thing, his opposition automatically rejected it. To be sure, Trump often threw gasoline on the fire with his vices, his bombastic personal style, and occasional buffoonery. The qualities that had once been viewed as showman’s schtick were widely deemed unacceptable in a US President. The court jester had become king, and it drove the lords and ladies at court mad. As anthropologists and psychologists have long understood, humans are hyper-social and tribal. Stanford Professor Rene Girard has pointed out that during times of stress and rivalry, we are inclined to ascribe blame not to a complex state of affairs, but to a particular person or group. Persistent problems and misfortunes build up negative psychic energy, which generates a collective yearning to destroy the person or persons on whom the blame is heaped. This process of scapegoating is amplified by what Professor Girard called mimesis—that is, imitation—the tendency to embrace an opinion or sentiment because everyone in a preferred group is embracing it. In trying to make sense of the world, we often look to those around us for cues to guide us in our perceptions and opinions. When presented with information, we all have a tendency to evaluate it in accordance with the identity of the messenger. People who identify themselves as conservatives tend to be automatically skeptical of any representation made by a messenger who is associated with the political Left. Likewise, people who identify themselves as liberals or leftists tend to be automatically skeptical of any representation made by a messenger who is associated with the political Right. I thought of this cognitive bias this morning when I stumbled across a 2017 study published by the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin titled More than 300,000 estimated victims of human trafficking in Texas. The report states: Approximately 79,000 minors and youths are victims of sex trafficking in Texas. Upon reading this, I was instantly reminded of the film Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel, that was released on July 4, 2003. Apparently because the the producers and cast are widely associated with right-wing Christian circles, pretty much every legacy media film review panned it as a “QAnon Fever Dream” or a film “linked to QAnon” or a film championed by “supporters of QAnon.” In other words, instead of applauding the filmmakers for telling a dramatic story about an enormous organized crime (79,000 minors sex trafficked in the State of Texas alone), the MSM critics all panned it in the same programmatic and robotic way. Now we are seeing a similar cognitive bias happening with respect to the Israel Gaza conflict among many people who identify themselves as conservatives. After an estimated 1000 armed men identified as Hamas fighters committed mass murder and other atrocities against an estimated 1200 Israeli civilians, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a military offensive into Gaza. Most criticism of this military response has come from people, institutions, and outlets that we associate with the political Left. The Wall Street Journal was something of an exception with its report on December 30, 2023: The war in the Gaza Strip is generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record. By mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on the strip. Nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The bombing has damaged Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment buildings, shopping malls and luxury hotels, theaters and schools. Much of the water, electrical, communications and healthcare infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair. It seems to me that the proper response to the mass murder—whether conducted by terrorists of Saudi Arabian nationality on September 11, 2001 or by terrorists who reside in Gaza—is to treat it primarily as a matter for law enforcement. I understand that mass murder committed by foreign nationals presents a major challenge to conventional law enforcement procedures. Nevertheless, at least trying to determine the identity of the culprits, their co-conspirators, and the their directors, and to bring these perpetrators to justice, strikes me as the more appropriate legal and moral response than blowing a densely populated urban area to smithereens. The military response in Gaza amounts to punishing 2 million people for the actions of 1000 murderers. Justifications for the military response range from “Israel has a right to defend itself” to the notion that the people of Gaza are suffering as a result of their allegiance to Hamas since an election in 2006. While it’s certainly true that Israel has a right to defend itself, the assertion makes me wonder why the IDF didn’t defend the country on October 7, 2023. The intelligence and military failure of October 7, 2023 strikes as unfathomably strange. As for the 2 million people of Gaza being accountable for the 2006 election: If it comes to war with nuclear-armed Russia, I hope the same reasoning isn’t applied to the millions of Americans who did NOT vote for Joe Biden. Courageous Discourse™ with Dr. Peter McCullough & John Leake. © 2024 Peter McCullough MD MPH 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

The west’s lethal error in the war against Israel The distinction between Hamas and “ordinary” Palestinians is largely spurious MELANIE PHILLIPS JAN 19

In the current war in the Middle East, it’s a given that a distinction must be drawn between Hamas and the “ordinary” Palestinian Arab residents of Gaza. This distinction, however, is largely spurious. An article in The Washington Free Beacon that drew upon interviews given to Israeli TV by freed hostages has confirmed that ordinary Gazans were deeply involved in the October 7 pogrom and subjected the hostages to cruelty, abuse and starvation. Nili Margalit recounted how Gazan “civilians, regular people” took her hostage at knifepoint in the October 7 attack. Margalit said a “boy … 17, maybe 18 years old” and an “older man with the knife” broke down the door of her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and forced her, barefoot and in pyjamas, into a stolen golf cart. Margalit said she saw a “mob, thousands of people,” including “women and children,” pouring across Israel’s breached border with Gaza less than two miles away. She saw two boys, one “no more than four or five years old” and the other 15 or 16, riding an all-terrain vehicle that belonged to her father, a cattle breeder who was among those murdered that day. The boys had apparently already made one trip from Nir Oz to Gaza and were returning for another round of carnage. A number of the freed hostages said they spent part of their captivity in family homes, hospitals and other civilian sites in Gaza where they were locked into rooms, starved and ill-treated. Mia Schem, who was shot in the arm and abducted from the Supernova music festival, said her captors brought her directly to a hospital in Gaza as she was bleeding to death. Schem then received no further treatment or even pain medication. She was taken to a private home where a man and his family held her captive with “pure hate,” forbidding her to speak, cry or move. She would go days without receiving food and was never allowed to bathe. Bad as their conditions were, the hostages’ captors repeatedly told them that their lives would be at risk if they were discovered by ordinary Gazans. The hostages hardly needed any such warning. Sharon Aloni Cunio recalled how she and her twin three-year-old daughters were mobbed on October 7 as terrorists brought them into Gaza on a tractor from their home in Nir Oz. “People start beating everyone who was sitting on the tractor — just beating us, from all sides. It was horrific,” she said. The testimony of the freed hostages carries particular weight because these aren’t extreme nationalists. They are Israelis who, in general, were until October 7 the most fervent believers in peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian Arabs, ferrying Gaza residents to hospital in Israel and establishing many bonds with them. They believed that whatever the failings of Palestinian leaders, the Palestinian people just wanted to live alongside them in peace and security. Now they say something very different. “I experienced hell. Everyone there are terrorists,” said Schem. “There are no innocent civilians, not one.” Agam Goldstein-Almog, who was abducted with her mother and two younger siblings after Hamas murdered her father and elder sister in their homes in Kfar Aza, said: “If we previously believed that there was a chance for peace, we’ve lost all faith in these people, especially after we were there and among the population.” Nor are most Arabs living in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria any different. Between October 7 and January 15, Rescuers Without Borders recorded more than 2,600 attacks targeting Israeli civilians and soldiers, including 760 cases of rock-throwing, 551 fire bombings, 12 attempted or successful stabbings and nine vehicular assaults. The IDF has been fighting heavy battles in these territories to thwart attacks and destroy terrorist infrastructure. In recent weeks, it’s been investigating possible infiltration tunnels discovered near Jewish communities in the Hebron Hills in Judea and Shiloh in Samaria’s Binyamin region. The Palestinian Authority has never condemned the October 7 pogrom; on the contrary, its main party, Fatah, has repeatedly extolled the atrocities. A poll published by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research showed support for Hamas in Judea and Samaria more than tripled after October 7, with no fewer than 82 per cent of Arabs there supporting the attack and 70 p[er cent of them supporting the “armed struggle” against Israel. In any moral universe, a set of people bent upon exterminating another would be treated as pariahs by the international community and their rights would be considered forfeit. Yet America is even now insisting that the “route to peace” is through a Palestinian state that must be ruled by a “revitalised” and “reformed” PA. There’s zero chance of any such reform. Such a state would merely revitalise the capacity of the Palestinian Arabs to inflict yet more genocidal attacks on Israel. America and Britain remain wedded to the “two-state solution” because they refuse to acknowledge that this conflict is not over a division of land. Instead, it is a war of annihilation against the Jewish homeland that has lasted for almost 100 years. Moreover, the reason the conflict still endures is the behaviour of the west itself. Led by Britain in the 1930s, the west has consistently rewarded and incentivised Arab aggressors bent on destroying Israel, while it has prevented Israel from taking the measures necessary to see off the threat once and for all. The essential prerequisite for any solution is for the west to withdraw support for Palestinian aggression and unequivocally back Israeli self-defence. Deprived of both western funding and validation, the Palestinian agenda would fall apart. Instead, the west continues to promote the murderous fiction that there are “good” Palestinians who deserve a state of their own — which would be a terror state with Israel at its mercy. The west’s lethal error goes even deeper. America and the UK have failed to realise that, just as Hamas can’t be divorced from the Palestinians but are part of the same genocidal entity, so the war against Israel is merely the most neuralgic element of a civilisational war between the Muslim world and the west. That war was declared in 1979, when the Islamic revolution in Iran galvanised and radicalised Sunni as well as Shi’ite Muslims across the world, helping to create al Qaeda. The new Iranian regime declared war on the west and has prosecuted that war ever since with virtually no pushback. Instead, western appeasement has helped finance and bolster Iran’s terrorism, proxy wars and quest for hegemony. That catastrophic strategy, combined with the west’s continued financing and support of the Palestinian agenda, enabled the Hamas pogrom and onslaught on Israel from multiple fronts in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Judea and Samaria. This already metastasising conflict is feared to presage a world war in which Russia and China join Iran against a west which has shown such lamentable enfeeblement in the Middle East. Britain and America do not only insist that “bad” Hamas is different from the “good” Palestinians. They similarly claim that al Qaeda, ISIS and other radical Islamists are merely rogue actors in an otherwise unthreatening Muslim world. Both Britain and America have accordingly failed to recognise how jihadis intent upon conquering the west for Islam — as Hamas has said is its own ultimate aim —have tunnelled into British and American democratic structures and institutions as devastatingly as they have tunnelled into Israel from Gaza and Lebanon. As a result of myopia, muddled thinking and moral cowardice, America and Britain are not just aiming to ensure that an Israel they protect from outright annihilation will nevertheless continue to twist in the murderous Islamist wind. They have also advertised to the enemies of civilisation that the west itself is ripe for conquest. Jewish News Syndicate My most recent exclusive post for my premium subscribers argued that the British government’s attitude towards Islamism remains dangerously blinkered. This is how the piece begins: Denial still flows through Londonistan MELANIE PHILLIPS · JAN 18 You can read my most recent post that’s available to everyone, on the deepening chill over Israel from Britain and America, if you click here. And you can access the links to all my work by visiting my website here. One more thing… This is how my email posts work. There are two subscription levels: my free service and my premium service. Anyone can sign up to the free service on this website. You can of course unsubscribe at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” at the foot of each email. Everyone on the free list will receive the full text of pieces I write for outlets such as the Jewish News Syndicate and the Jewish Chronicle, as well as other posts and links to my broadcasting and video work. But why not subscribe to my premium service? For that you’ll also receive pieces that I write specially for my premium subscribers. Those articles will not be published elsewhere. They’ll arrive in your inbox as soon as I have written them. There is a monthly fee of $6.99 for the premium service, or $70 for an annual subscription. Although the fee is charged in US dollars, you can sign up with any credit card. Just click on the “subscribe now” button below to see the available options for subscribing either to the premium or the free service. A final point… If you purchase a subscription to my site, you will be authorising a payment to my company Dirah Associates. In the past, that is the name that may have appeared on your credit card statement. In future, though, the charge should appear instead as Melanie Phillips. And thank you for following my work. © 2024 Melanie Phillips BCM Rozenberg London WC1N 3XX Unsubscribe

Bibi Rejects Palestinian Statehood, Biden Says Bombing Yemen Doesn't Work But Will Continue Anyway

Bibi Rejects Palestinian Statehood, Biden Says Bombing Yemen Doesn't Work But Will Continue Anyway CAITLIN JOHNSTONE JAN 19 Benjamin Netanyahu said he opposes Palestinian statehood and that Israel must control everything from the river to the sea on the same day Joe Biden said the repeated bombing of Yemen isn’t deterring Ansarallah but they’re going to keep bombing anyway. “In any future arrangement … Israel needs security control over all territory west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu told the press on Thursday, saying he has made this position clear to the White House. Asked by the press on Thursday if the strikes against the Houthis are working, Biden replied “Well, when you say ‘working’ — are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.” An unusually honest day for empire managers. ❖ Zionism does not work. It was tried, and it turns out it doesn’t work. If the forced existence of your artificial ethnostate requires ceaseless war and the periodic massacring of large numbers of children, then your plan for your artificial ethnostate isn’t working out and a new plan is needed. ❖ Talking about October 7 without talking about the mountains of Israeli abuses which gave rise to it is the same as lying. ❖ Normal person: It’s bad to massacre tens of thousands of civilians. Crazy person: Oh so you’re saying you hate Jews then. You’re saying Jews shouldn’t defend themselves. You want all the Jews to die so there won’t be any more Jews because you hate Jews. Jews Jews Jews Jews Jews. ❖ Israel apologists would have you believe there’s been a sudden worldwide emergence of “Hamas supporters” everywhere rather than a normal and entirely predictable worldwide opposition to genocide. ❖ A lot of the footage of explosions in Gaza we’ve been seeing are not from airstrikes but detonations of explosives planted in the buildings. We’re watching the controlled demolition of an entire civilization. https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1747734676800684361 ❖ Once it was accepted that a Jewish ethnostate dropped on top of an already existing country was not only necessary but so necessary that any and all means must be used to maintain it, atrocities were inevitable. A one-way track to genocide and ethnic cleansing was already set. ❖ When I look at this awful trainwreck of a world we’re leaving to younger generations it infuriates me that older generations are constantly bitching at them. How can we have any attitude toward the young but total bare-hearted contrition? We should be on our knees begging them to forgive us for having failed them so spectacularly, but instead we’ve got the gall to wag our fingers at them and lecture them about pronouns and TikTok. “Hurr, durr, they look at their smartphones too much and they don’t know how to change a tire and they use they/them pronouns!” Shut up you fucking wanker. You burnt up their biosphere you piece of shit. You’re tossing them from the womb into a dying world of war and chaos and injustice and exploitation and you have the temerity to tell them they’re doing it wrong? Fuck you. I hope they ignore us, personally. I hope they keep rewriting the rules of this dogshit society we’re leaving them and knocking down every pillar of our culture. Everything we older generations have done has taken our world to the brink of environmental collapse and nuclear brinkmanship, so I hope they keep shrugging off the old rules of this profoundly sick civilization and trying new things and blazing new trails in the hope of steering clear of the disaster we placed on their horizon. We shouldn’t be mocking and lecturing them, we should be humbly apologizing and trying to learn from them and help them. We are failures. They are humanity’s last and only hope. To the young: I am so, so sorry, from the very bottom of my heart. I hope you succeed in clawing your way out of the madness your predecessors left you in and create a healthy world, a healthy world which will look nothing like the one we made for you. I am on your side, whatever you need. ❖ Israel has lost the argument. The western empire has lost the argument. The mass media have lost the argument. Mainstream western culture has lost the argument. Capitalism has lost the argument. Our systems have failed us as massively as anything can fail. Time for something new. _______________ My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley. Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 You're currently a free subscriber to Caitlin’s Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. © 2024 Caitlin Johnstone PO Box 378, Mentone, 3194, Victoria, Australia Unsubscribe Get the app Start writing

Quote Of The Day

State Dept.: Obama’s Demands To Stop West Bank Expansion Includes Jerusalem

By David Bedein, Middle East Correspondent
Friday, May 29, 2009
Jerusalem — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued an unprecedented statement clarifying President Barack Obama’s demands for Israel to stop expanding Jewish communities in areas it acquired following the 1967 Six-Day War, including Jerusalem.

The statement, issued Wednesday, applies to the area known in Israel by their Biblical names, Judea and Samaria, and as the West Bank by the international community.

Mrs. Clinton explained President Obama demands that there should be no expansion in these communities for the purpose of “natural growth.”

That would include an American demand to stop construction of kindergartens, schools and housing for young couples.

Ms. Clinton’s press spokesman was asked if President Obama’s demand to halt expansion of “West Bank Jewish communities” included a demand to stop expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

The answer was affirmative. The U.S. State Department demands that Israel limit Jewish growth in these areas of Jerusalem, “whose status remains to be determined” in negotiations.

Israeli Government Press Director Daniel Seamen reacted to this Obama administration statement by saying: “I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.”

Hezbollah Warns U.S. It May Change It's Peaceful Ways

Terrorist Sheik Naim Kassem

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - The deputy chief of Hezbollah warned Tuesday that any "military adventure" by the United States and Israel against Iran would have dangerous consequences across the Mideast.

Sheik Naim Kassem suggested his pro-Iranian (and funded/supplied by Iran) group would not get involved if the U.S. attacks Iran, but he raised the possibility that Israel might attack Lebanon as part of such an assault - in which case, he said, Hezbollah would "definitely" respond.

No doubt by bravley launching missiles at civilian targets from within Lebanese "schools" again.

He said Hezbollah guerrillas were making plans in case Israel, like last summer, attacks Lebanon again.

Well ya know ass hat, if you hadn't kidnaped Israeli soldiers, Israel wouldn't have invaded.

"The resistance is taking all the necessary measures to be ready and prepared," Kassem said in an interview with the Associated (with terrorists) Press. He would not elaborate but said Hezbollah is constantly changing its fighting tactics so the Israelis would not know its capabilities.

Try fighting the Israeli army like men instead of hiding behind Lebanese civilians while attacking Israeli civilians. I'm sure Israel will never expect that tactic from brave Muslims.

We've evaluated the experience of the war and learned lessons from it and are taking steps to accommodate them with new realities," he said. "We are making sure the enemy will be in the dark in the future. This is the strength of the resistance and the secret of its success."

The biggest success they had last time was in enlisting the eager aid of the main stream media. Reading most accounts from the MSM you'd have thought Israel attacked unprovoked and that they were targeting civilians. You heard nary a word about Hezbollah indiscriminately lobbing missiles at civilians in Israel unless you watched Fox News.

The United States insists it is not planning to attack Iran and is trying to persuade Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment, as demanded by the United Nations. But fear of a strike is growing throughout the Middle East.

Fear of a strike should be growing in the Middle East. Iran is courting a dragon.

Kassem, a Shiite Muslim cleric (and terrorist), warned that an assault on Iran could expand across the region.

Huh. That's weird. I'm agreeing with a terrorist. Weird feeling. Fortunately it looks like a few Muslim countries are lining up on our side.

"It remains to be seen what the level of an American aggression on Iran would be," he said. "Is it going to be limited or an all-out war? Will other countries become involved? Will it spread to the entire region?"

It will undoubtedly spread, but American aggression ? Iran is ran by people that have repeatedly declared they seek the destruction of Israel and the US. They also believe that causing chaos will hasten the return of the Twelfth Imam. I'm hoping for an all-out war to ensure Iran's insane ideology never results in nuclear war.

Asked if the U.S. attacked Iran, Hezbollah would retaliate by striking Israel, Kassem said Iran is capable of defending itself because it "possesses the means, a tenacious populace and a wise leadership."

Wise leadership ? The terrorist cracks a joke !
But yeah, they've got missiles that can hit Israel, no missiles that can hit us, so sure ! They would attack Israel.

Iran has threatened to attack the hundreds of thousands of U.S. forces based in the Persian Gulf and in Iraq if America launches a strike.

Like they'd get the chance.

Kassem warned, "we will definitely respond and defend ourselves" if Israel attacks Lebanon.

What is this crap about Israel attacking Lebanon ? What does that have to do with Iran making nukes ? What does that have to do with us or Israel attacking Iran ?

Kassem's comments aimed to counter speculation that Hezbollah may stir up trouble in the region - including attacking Israel - if Iran is attacked: "They have to know that any military adventure, if widened and involves several countries in the region, would have dangerous consequences for everyone."

So earlier in the interview he says they won't attack Israel if Israel or the US attacks Iran, then implies they will ? Muslim pretzel logic ! From this mealy-mouthed interview the AP get the headline "Hezbollah Warns U.S. Against Iran Attack" ?

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been locked in a power-struggle for months with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. The Shiite group and its allies are demanding a new government in which they would have greater power. Washington has dramatically beefed up support for Saniora, who has rejected the opposition's demands.

The government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora is also backed by the people of Lebanon. A detail to insignificant for the AP. Hezbollah is a terrorist group consisting of Syrians, Iranians and Islamic scum from throughout the Middle East funded and supplied by Syria and Iran.

Kassem blamed the United States for the deadlock, saying it is pressuring Saniora to refuse a compromise. Washington's goal is to undermine Hezbollah's resistance against Israel, he said.

Compromise ? Hezbollah's goal is the destruction of Israel. How can there be a compromise ? Resistance against Israel ? Hezbollah has initiated every conflict with Israel. By Resistance does the AP mean Hezbollah is resisting Israeli self defense ?

Kassem, who is the deputy of Hezbollah's charismatic leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, dismissed Lebanese and American government charges that Hezbollah was a tool of Iran and Syria. In contrast, he said, "the (Saniora) government is directly dictated by the Americans."

Yeah, Syria has a long history of non-interference in what was once the "Switzerland of the Middle East". That terrorist, he's so funny he's killing me !

Qatar, Oman and The UAE Will Allow Israeli Air Force Through To Iran

Green Light For Israeli Attack ?

Three Arab states in the Persian Gulf would be willing to allow the Israel Air force to enter their airspace in order to reach Iran in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on Sunday.

According to the report, a diplomat from one of the gulf states visiting Washington on Saturday said the three states, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, have told the United States that they would not object to Israel using their airspace, despite their fear of an Iranian response.

Even the members of the Dar al-Islam fear the welcomers of the Twelfth Imam more than they fear the Zionist regime.

3 Gulf states agree to IAF overflights en route to Iran.

Al-Siyasa further reported that NATO leaders are urging Turkey to open its airspace for an Attack on Iran as well and to also open its airports and borders in case of a ground attack.
According to a British diplomat who spoke to an Al-Siyasa correspondent, Turkey will not repeat the mistake it made in 2003, when it refused to open its airspace to U.S. Air Force overflights en route to attacking Iraq.

British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday that Israel is negotiating with the U.S. over permission for an "air corridor" over Iraq, should an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities become necessary.

We (Being The United States) no longer have the will to strike our enemies thanks in large part to the MSM and the DemocRats. Israel must strike on our behalf. Indeed on behalf of the world. God speed Israel.

Hat Tip: Drunken Blogging.

Chalk Another One Up For The Infidels

Mahmoud Abu Abuyed, Ex-Terrorist

Undercover Border Policemen kill Jenin-area Islamic Jihad chief

Undercover Border Police troops killed an Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank town of Jenin on Wednesday, one day after a suicide bombing attempt he allegedly ordered was thwarted in Tel Aviv.

The slain man terrorist was identified as Mahmoud Abu Ubayed, 24, commander of Islamic Jihad in areas near Jenin. Witnesses said Abu Ubayed was driving his car (minding his own business) near the Yihya Ayyash Square in Jenin when undercover troops in civilian clothing surprised him and sprayed the vehicle with bullets. (surprise !) The square was named for a Hamas bombing mastermind killed in an Israeli-ordered attack in 1996.

The Israel Defense Forces commander of the Jenin area, Lieutenant General Hertsi Halevi, said Abu Ubayed was the Islamic Jihad's leading explosives expert, and that recently the IDF had been making a concerted effort to arrest him due to the fact that he had significantly improved the (terrorist) organization's bomb-making capability.

Abu Ubayed was also the one who announced that the Islamic Jihad was behind Tuesday's failed suicide bombing attempt in Tel Aviv.

According to Halevi, the undercover troops followed Abu Ubayed's car, but Abu Ubayed noticed them and aimed his weapon at them. The Border Policemen then opened fire from a distance of four meters.

Palestinian Authority police officers who arrived at the scene were disarmed by the border policemen.

Islamic Jihad on Wednesday vowed retaliation for Ubayed's killing.

"The Zionist enemy's crimes and killing will not effect our resistance program and God willing today's crime will not pass without revenge and revenge will be soon," the group said.

Killing terrorists isn't a crime, it's a sport.

The planned large-scale attack in the Tel Aviv area was prevented Tuesday when police and security forces arrested an Islamic Jihad militant terrorist and his partners at an apartment in Bat Yam.

According to the IDF, Abu Ubayed dispatched the suspected bomber, a resident of a village near Jenin. Islamic Jihad last carried out a suicide attack in Israel on January 29, when three people were killed in the Red Sea resort of Eilat.

The bomber caught had given Ubayed's name during interrogation, Army Radio reported. The IDF said that Ubayed had supplied the bomber with the explosives.

The suspect told police where the explosive device he was supposed to use in the attack was located and the bomb squad found the large device in a garbage can in the center of Rishon Letzion.

The United States has placed a bounty on the head of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shalah, based in Damascus, and the organization has warned that if its leader is harmed it will also target American interests.

When did they stop targeting American interests?

Hat Tip: Power Line

Peaceful Ahmadinejad: Israel 'will be removed'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and "other nations" will eventually remove Israel from the region.

The president said that the results of the parliamentary elections in Palestine and the victory of the Hamas group "clearly showed what the people really want."

That much I agree with him on. The peaceful Palestinians showed that they have no desire for peace.

While chanting "Death to America", "Death of Israel" and "Nuclear energy is our undisputable right", the crowd walked toward the Azadi (Freedom) Square in Tehran where Ahmadinejad held his annual speech.

"Those who insulted the prophet should know that you cannot obscure the sun with a handful of dust. The dust will just get back and blind your own eyes," he said.

The crowd replied to his remarks with "Death to Denmark" slogans.

That sounds pretty peaceful to me.

Hamas Suggests Using "Militants" (Terrorists) In Army

The leader of Hamas suggested Saturday that the Islamic group could create a Palestinian army that would include its militant wing - responsible for scores of deadly attacks on Israelis - in the aftermath of its crushing victory in parliamentary elections.

I guess giving up all of that land to the "Peace Loving" Palestinians paid off.

The Hamas chief, Khaled Mashaal, reiterated that Hamas would not recognize Israel and indicated attacks on Israeli civilians would continue as long as Israel continued to target Palestinian civilians. "As long as we are under occupation then resistance is our right," he said.

I am not aware of Israel ever having deliberately targeting civilians. Ever.
Hamas does on almost a daily basis. They are terrorists.

Speaking from his base in Damascus, Syria, Mashaal insisted his group would not disarm and said Hamas' military wing, estimated at nearly 5,000 gunmen in Gaza alone, could be merged into a Palestinian army.
"We are ready to unify the weapons of Palestinian factions, with Palestinian consensus, and form an army like any independent state," he said.

On December 9, 2005, Mashaal addressed a crowd in Damascus, Syria on the informal truce with the government of Israel that ends at the end of the year, stating that, "We will not enter a new truce and our people are preparing for a new round of conflict." The animal has never wanted peace. He is a warmonger and a terrorist. He's hiding in Damascus because he knows Mossad will kill him at the first opportunity, as well they should.

"If Hamas wants to be considered a partner in peace, it's very clear what it has to do. It has to renounce terrorism, disarm, accept Israel's right to exist and support political solutions to issues rather than pursuing violent jihad," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

But they won't. Why would they ? Terrorism gained them land and the parliament.

Mashaal also said Hamas would abide by existing agreements with the country "as long as it is in the interest of our people."

In this madman's view, anything that benfits Israel is not in the interest of his people. As such, all agreements are null and void.

Israeli officials have said repeatedly that they would not deal with Hamas, and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israel would not rule out targeted killings against Hamas leaders if they attack Israel. Israeli airstrikes in 2004 killed Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdel Aziz Rantisi.
"Whoever stands at the head of a terror organization and continues to carry out terror attacks against Israel is not immune," Mofaz told Israel's Channel 2 television.

As it should be.

"We are now no longer part of the cease-fire," an Al Aqsa gunman, Nasser Haras, told the crowd, referring to a year-old truce with Israel.

There you have it.

President Bush told "CBS Evening News" on Friday that the United States would cut aid to the Palestinian government unless Hamas, which the U.S. lists as a terror group, abolishes its militant wing and stops calling for Israel's destruction.

As we should.

Speaking at the World Forum in Davos, Switzerland, former President Clinton suggested Saturday that the West should be more open to eventual talks with Hamas.

Clinton, as always, fails to have a clue.

Israel To HAMAS: "You shall not pass."

A high-ranking Israeli Defense Ministry member said they will not allow elected HAMAS members to freely pass between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Foreign Minister Amos Gilad told Israeli radio they will not allow free entries to the murderer and terror organization representatives who want to destroy Israel. "Show me a country that will allow this," Gilad lashed out.

Amos Gilad Expects Hamas to Continue Terror After Joining PA Gov’t

Of course they'll continue terrorism, look where it's got them. They have more territory and they won the elections.

Israel Disengagement Protest

I admit, I'm a bit behind on this one.
I never saw any of these photos on the MSM. I wonder why... no, not really. We all know why we never saw these pictures.
I don't understand why Israel pulled out of Gaza. It's suicide.
Hamas took the occasion to launch rockets into Israel. Who could have predicted that ?
Anyway, here's a link to those Israelis that understood this.
From: OXEN at The OX Rant.

True Resolve

One Israeli security official was recently asked how his methods differed from those used in the U.S. “You people look for weapons,” he said. “We look for terrorists.”