Tag Archives: bibinetanyahu

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Daily Broadside | “First the Saturday People, Then the Sunday People.” Why Israel Must Defeat Hamas

Circling back to the issue of Israel and Hamas, Bibi Netanyahu announced that Israel, after three weeks of preparation, has entered the “second stage” of their plan to wipe out Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday announced that his forces have entered the “second stage” of its war with the terrorist group Hamas, calling the fight a “second War of Independence.” 

“The war inside the Gaza Strip will be long and difficult, and we are prepared for it,” Netanyahu said during a press conference in the evening, local time. “This is our second War of Independence.”

“We will fight for the defense of the homeland,” he continued. “We will fight and not retreat. We will fight on land, sea and in the air. We will destroy the enemy above ground, and underground. We will fight and win.”

I, for one, am glad to hear his resolve. There can be no waffling on whether or not to destroy Hamas. They are a recognized terrorist organization. They committed unspeakable atrocities on October 7 against innocent, civilians.

Hamas is inhuman, bestial, barbaric, cruel, brutish, primative, unrestrained, unrepentant, savage, sadistic. There can be no quarter taken, and none can be given.

Of course the usual suspects are calling for a cease-fire.

Netanyahu spoke at the end of a difficult week for Israel, with more discussion and frustration on both sides of the conflict as some world leaders called for a humanitarian pause or a ceasefire. The United Nations voted on several motions and passed one calling for a ceasefire, which Israel outright rejected and labeled “despicable.” 

The UN was founded in the wake of the Holocaust. If I had my way, the U.S. would withdraw from the UN and kick them out of our country. They’ve outlived their usefulness.

Fortunately, Bibi stood firm.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu flatly rejected calls for a cease-fire in comments to the press on Monday.

Netanyahu compared the October 7 massacre by Hamas to the Pearl Harbor and 9-11 attacks on the U.S., saying Israel is equally justified in retaliating against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. He went on to say that Israel will continue its war against Hamas “until victory.”

“Calls for a cease-fire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen,” Netanyahu said.

“Ladies and gentlement, the Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war. A war for our common future,” he continued. “Today we draw a line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism. It is a time for everyone to decide where they stand. Israel will stand against the forces of barbarism until victory. I hope and pray that civilized nations everywhere will back this fight.”

Israeli forces entered the second stage of their conflict with Hamas this week, greatly expanding ground operations within the Gaza strip. Military officials have warned that the war will be long and difficult.

I agree with him that this is a time for war — against a savage, primative death cult that wants no less than the eradication of the Jews and of Israel as a nation. You can’t reason with fanatical, irrational, ideologically-blinded hatred.

Hamas and some portion of their civilian population hate Israel so much that they won’t let their own people out of Gaza. Israel has been warning the people in the north of Gaza to leave, to move south. But Hamas wants to make “martyrs” of them all: young, old, men, women, children. All for the glory of dying in service to Allah. When I say it’s a death cult, I mean it.

And if you think this is just a “Jewish” problem, you might want to think again. An Islamist slogan is “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.” First they destroy the Jews, then they destroy all the Christians. Israel is the “Little Satan” (Jews) but the United States is the “Great Satan” (the Christians).

They are coming for us. As the last three weeks have demonstrated, there are plenty of them in our country due to our insane immigration policies and our open southern border. Don’t think there isn’t great hatred just waiting for its moment to strike.

After the Holocaust, the world declared “Never Again.” Unbelievably, we are at a moment when that declaration is being stress-tested.

The intent of the Islamic jihadists is clear and Hamas is the most high-profile expression of it at the moment, just as ISIS was a decade ago. If you stand for “never again,” as I do, you understand why Isreal can’t dialogue with people like this. You must take the fight to them, destroy them and make sure that any survivors never forget “never again.”

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Daily Broadside | America is an “Indispensable” Friend of Israel

Daily Verse | Philemon 20
I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ.

Tuesday’s Reading: Hebrews 1-2

It’s Tuesday and less than three weeks left in the year 2022. Only this many days, hours and minutes to Christmas! Have you gotten your Christmas shopping done?

Bari Weiss, who resigned from The New York Times in July 2020 after becoming “the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views,” recently started a new media company called, The Free Press (thefp.com). I found it because I had subscribed to her newsletter, “Common Sense,” whose readership grew to a quarter-million, and a few days ago she announced that the newsletter now has a permanent home as The Free Press.

I haven’t become a paid subscriber, yet, but am thinking this may be a new source of independent reporting that seeks to include a variety of viewpoints. Here’s how they describe the company:

The Free Press is a media company built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of great American journalism: honesty, doggedness, and fierce independence. We publish investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is—with the quality once expected from the legacy press, but with the fearlessness of the new.

We place a special emphasis on subjects and stories that others ignore or misrepresent. We always aim to highlight multiple perspectives on complicated subjects. And we don’t allow ideology to stand in the way of searching for the truth.

Still to be seen, I think, but I like the premise.

I was impressed with an interview Weiss did with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s just been reelected to a third term. Bibi, as he’s called, had some interesting things to say about the United States in his comments, and I wanted to call those out and share them with you (emphases mine).

I believe in democracy, not only within my own party, but also in the public. My views of democracy are informed by the basic texts of American democracy. I read the Federalist Papers, all 80 of them. I’m a Hamiltonian in many ways, but also a Madisonian. And these two basically set the ground rules. John Locke and Montesquieu are my heroes because I think there have to be checks and balances. 

You do not have a proper democracy by having self-chosen moral people who are above the public, above national interests. That’s ridiculous. If you want to look at an instance in history where you had exceptional people who were above the plebeians, look at the founding fathers of the United States. Geniuses, one after the other. But if you told them the way you’re going to secure democracy is by giving the power to the anointed few who will decide for the unwashed many? They’d say that’s ridiculous. But that’s a view of democracy that is penetrating Western democracies and is very, very dangerous. It’s not going to sustain them. I’m the opposite of a strongman. I believe in democracy, obviously, in the balance of between the three branches of government but also in a basic bill of rights. You can have a majority, but you can’t decapitate all redheaded people, and neither can the courts say that you can decapitate all redheaded people. There has to be a balance between the three branches of government. That balance has been in many ways impaired in Israel by the rise of unchecked judicial power. Correcting it is not destroying democracy, it’s protecting it.

I suspected but had not heard Bibi give credit to America’s Founding Fathers as his mentors in democracy. (He speaks of democracy, of course, but a reminder that we are a not a pure democracy but a representative republic.) And he puts his finger on exactly what is going wrong in the U.S. right now: an elite cabal of political, educational, business and media leaders who are determining what we can and cannot see, hear or say.

I have to say that I think America is an indispensable ally. I think America, the rise of America, made all the difference in Jewish history—it’s not merely the rise of Israel in the first half of the 20th century. America became the leader of the world, and it protected liberty, protected democracy, and protected human rights. It would be a tragedy if the United States abandons its role and stops believing in its mission to be the beacon of liberty and the world…

…With the United States in particular, there is a deep bond. It’s really a deep bond. It’s not just something I’m saying or just a figure of speech. There is a deep bond. We are the original Jerusalem. Americans are the new Jerusalem, the new promised land, and we’re the original promised land. There’s a deep bond there, and the same is true to a lesser extent with other Western democracies, however critical I am occasionally of their vacillating positions. I think that common bond is important.

I think it’s true that there has developed a deep bond between Israel and America, but it also seems to be true that the Left (again) is working overtime to weaken that bond. (It actually doesn’t matter what it is in our history; if it was part of American life under democracy, the progressive bullies want to destroy it.)

I like Netanyahu and think he’s the right leader for Israel, and I’m pleased he has such a positive view of the United States. I’m a supporter of Israel and reject out of hand the efforts to demonize the Israelis.