NEVER lower the bar. It was frustrating to see various commentators concentrate their fire and ire on Adam Bandt and his accomplices for not supporting a government motion in Parliament that condemned “all forms of hate speech.” For the Greens and the Teals to thereby endorse Hamas and Palestinian ‘protesters’ is contemptible, certainly, but it was low-hanging fruit. No, Mr Dutton, this was not a “unifying motion.” Bandt or no, it was a disgrace in its own right. It was trite, hackneyed equivalency-mongering of the sort we’ve come to expect from the left whenever Israel is subjected to murderous enormities. Only in the duchessed imaginations of Islam’s Western blackmailers and the apostatised minds of their enablers could last week’s holocaust in Israel be read as an occasion for sandbagging Mohammedanism. The Labor Party is in electoral thrall to the imams who roused thousands into the CBDs of Sydney and Melbourne to celebrate the killing of Jews but the Liberal Party isn’t. Albanese’s pox on both their houses boilerplate was a wink-wink reward for the pogrom mobs. Besides which, Islam is not a race and Christophobic Labor is hardly believable in the role of Fidei Defensor. It has been waging jihad on Catholics for years.
As for the rules of war – either set forth in international law or in the theorised bellum iustum of Cicero, Augustine or Aquinas – the following brief animadversions are apposite. The first concerns distinguishing combatants from civilians. A state that has the ability to annihilate Gaza at any time chooses not to – while urging its inhabitants to evacuate. This proves charges of “war crimes” and “genocide” are wholly malevolent lies. That Israel will launch a ground offensive whose objective is the erasure of Hamas proves it even more emphatically. Thousands of IDF personnel will be put in harm’s way to achieve that end without endangering the 11 or so adults in Gaza who have no moral liability for cultivating exterminationism. On that subject, bear in mind that when Donald Trump was elected in 2016, most of the animals Israel is hunting were sweet young boys. They didn’t grow into perverts that even the SS would have reined in of their own volition. Here it is worth noting – before dismissing – the unsolicited cant of Washington. Harry Truman dropped two atomic bombs on civilians on the pretext that doing so saved American GIs.
While the lightweights of anti-semitism during Israeli conflicts mawkishly hawk civilian casualties, those who regard themselves as sophisticates run with ‘proportionality.’ This too has centuries-old antecedents in moral theology and, more recently, secular military ethics. The distorted version of the protocol – the one that gets air play, needless to say – is that the aggrieved nation should call it a day once it kills as many of its enemies as the latter did when they started the war. Ironically, this chyron-friendly variant is closer to the “eye for an eye” of the Book of Exodus than it is to Grotius or the Hague Conventions. Correctly understood, the proportionately conducted military operation requires that inevitable, even foreseen civilian deaths and destruction of property are justified – by the proximate necessity of neutralising discrete threats and by the overarching moral imperative to win. All schools of just war theory stipulate that war should not be embarked upon at all if there is no credible prospect of succeeding. Proportionality therefore demands something Cardinal Parolin injudiciously ignores: a resolute will to prevail – not just for survival tomorrow but for the sake of a lasting, secure peace. For Israel especially – perhaps uniquely – the absolute routing of its enemies is not a vengeful extravagance but a moral obligation.
Any Australian entity that has an American university credentialed person within toilet range in their organisation are nothing but despicable scum.
The Stain Yale Can Never Erase
The Alternate Universe of Anti-Israel Protestors
Hamas Disappointed Liberals Don’t Believe They Massacred Jews After They Went To All The Trouble To Livestream It
Christophobic Labor. Well put, CL. It’s interesting how the term Islamophobic implies that the person has a phobia. The implication being that they themselves are the problem. An illness. On the other hand, antisemitism is an active-voice, doing-word, issue. There is no suggestion that the participant has a mental health problem. Words matter. Why not semitophobic then?
I’m finding it very hard to write words at the moment, you write so superbly and so accurately. Thank you, C.L.
Absolutely agree CL.
Israel needs to end the hamas jihad threat and despite all attempts to avoid civil casualties can never win the propaganda war.
Now 500 killed in a hospital attack.
My only question is hamas misfire or deliberate act by islamic terrorists?
Linking this to the atomic bombing of Japan (which I disagree with you and was totally justified) won’t live well if Iran gets more overtly involved CL.
What will be your position if Hezbollah seriously threatens the survival of Israel in an initially successful invasion from the north, or Iran sends a missile over and Israel, under existential threat, responds with a nuke, tactical or otherwise!
The point re atomic bomb was the deliberate targeting of civilians.
Israel doesn’t do it yet the finger waggers in the west did it in spades in world war 2.
Germany, England, US in particular.
Meanwhile, it seems the
At Hams has accidentally blown up a hospital. Israel accused of doing it of course.
Entropy says:
18 October, 2023 at 6:48 am
Linking this to the atomic bombing of Japan (which I disagree with you and was totally justified) won’t live well if Iran gets more overtly involved CL.
What will be your position if Hezbollah seriously threatens the survival of Israel in an initially successful invasion from the north, or Iran sends a missile over and Israel, under existential threat, responds with a nuke, tactical or otherwise!
I think it would be a Samson-like strategy that should Israel be immediately (days or hours until annihilation) under existential threat if someone like Iran or multiple muslim nations attack, then they would expend their whole arsenal of nuclear weapons over the whole Middle East (at least one for Al Aqsa and one for the rock in KSA). I believe it is estimated that Israel possesses circa 200 nuclear weapons of varying yields.
I would think that by that stage, they might not be the only ones sending nukes up around the world.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. And I am pro-nuclear weapons and energy for Australia. Don’t build them if you are not prepared to at least countenance the thought of using them.
I agree that the bombs on Japan were justified. That the Japanese still took a few days to decide to surrender shows they were willing to sacrifice their population. I think the US would have kept dropping nukes too if they had enough fissile material to build more, quickly enough.
I am happy for the Greens to say they support Hamas rapists and baby killers, if they want to. That way I know exactly who they are.
From this, Hamas acted accordingly.
The moral imperative is to be free of their captors. Some may say the captors are benevolent. The Palestinians do no so say.
Moreover, and I don’t know about the dance party adjacent to the Gaza wall where people were killed by Hamas or taken prisoner, but the information about the families killed by Hamas is that they were within a guarded, militarised compound, one especially supposed to be prepared for battle given its proximity to the Gazans behind the barbed wire and concrete. In the sense, too, that the compounds are militarised, the killings can be said to be justifiable acts of war. But that they are militarised or to what extent is a moot point. And incidentally, the story by a journalist in the employ of Israeli media and at the compound about the beheading of babies remains just that – whereby that it remains only a story and not reality is in a way good thing, despite any malevolent intentions for the construct of that story.
And I do not accept the position of the Greens or other similar political factions when they claim they are supporters of justice for Palestine. On the whole, such supporters would as readily turn their backs on what they now profess – as they did about freedom during covid. I am not sure yet I tend to think that much of the support displayed by political elites for Palestine has more to do with that support being a declaration of antipathy and even hatred towards Judaeo-Christianity – so much so that the flaky supporters can overlook Islam for its rejection of all things ‘woke’, so dear to the hearts of the same political elite, at least for as as long as Islam is thought to have Judaeo-Christianity in its sights.
In other respects, it is not at all clear that, regarding Israel,
Time will tell whether the response is in truth a routing of enemies or an ethnic cleansing so as to incrementally make it that without Palestinians the entire place is the land of Israel, especially as argued to be Providentially so with the reclaiming of Al-aqsa.
The Greens are the vanguard of the ALP.
Their unspoken message to the vast Muslim and Arab ALP voteherds in Sydney and Melbourne is:
We’ve got your back.
Why Scamps and Tink supported the amendment and didn’t at least abstain from voting on the Motion is anyone’s guess.
Can they still hold their North Shore seats [with Labor/Greens ‘assistance’]?
Don’t bet against it.
The Greens position might be helpful in retaining the Seat of Griffith, which includes the Holland Park Mosque.
The surrounding area has the heaviest concentration of Muslims in Qld and The Greens would dearly love to hold that Seat.
YES did very well in those area, Holland Park East, Central & South combined for
2,090 YES/1,339 NO or 61% YES, an excellent result for YES in a mixed ethnic area.
Contrast that with Fowler, strong Vietnamese [Christian] presence:
YES 40%/NO 60%.
So, because families build walls to defend themselves from terrorists, they are then a legitimate target? It is beyond belief that anyone could torture logic so much that they could write such an abhorrent and ridiculous comment. The only conclusion is that you hate Jews Franx.
Agreed. He’s no doubt also very unhappy about the Israeli woman who led the defence of her “militarised compound” with fellow residents, killing all the would be arab butchers attempting to destroy it and slaughter everyone within.
In this doomsday nightmare scenario Israel would not survive. MAD stuff.
Funes
5e Doomsday scenario is for when defeat of Israel is inevitable. If you are going to be slaughtered, then take your enemies with you.
See also Samson.
Googlery blathered:
Look, anyone with more than half a brain knows you pretend to be from Queensland because if you’re trying to pretend to have a cartoonish version of right-of-centre politics, it’s best you pretend to be something you hate, but do try not to make it so obvious that even the Victorians can work it out.
John Brumble
Ed once published a photo of jacaranda flowers supposedly in New Farm Park.
The photo was of jacaranda flowers in Peshawar.
funes says
In this doomsday nightmare scenario Israel would not survive. MAD stuff.
This from Kevin Barrett [convert to Islam] at Unz Review:
BREAKING! Four (4) Carrier Strike Groups Deployed! WW3 Imminent! Link
Barrett seems to believe Aircraft Carriers are sitting ducks in 2023.
We’ll see.
In any case, they’re headed for Lebanon/Syria, very bad news for Hezbollah/Iran and Assad and the 101st Airborne landed in Jordan the other day, along with ‘non combat’ troops.
Short of Russian involvement [a very unlikely scenario], Israel will survive.
Dunno much about Melbourne, and not planning on visiting anytime soon … but the Greens are never going to win anything anywhere in Lakemba.
https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HouseDivisionPage-27966-251.htm
Labor can win these electorates so easily they have absolutely nothing to prove … and the don’t need Green preferences either.
The Greens were actually beaten by the informal vote in 2022, in the above division.
Hopefully you do understand that the reason most citizens of Israel have no ability to defend themselves, is because their own government has made it an absolute priority to keep those people disarmed and helpless. Sure I get it that mean tweets and unsympathetic blog comments are some of the worst problems we are facing, but even with that understood there might still be other things to consider.
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/09/israel-loosens-strict-gun-control-laws-to-arm-as-many-citizens-as-possible/
But wait! All those time we hear, “Israel lives in a tough neighbourhood!” and “Israel needs to defend itself, to protect its own people!”
But … errr … the government of Israel does NOT seem to want any of its people defending themselves. Weird huh? The people in Gaza are very well armed, and they are supposedly the ones “in prison”.
This situation is just starting to change … slightly too late but perhaps better than never … it does make the cynic in me just a little suspicious about why American and Australian boys should be sent off adventuring around the Middle East (yet again) risking their lives … while Israeli’s are kept dangling in danger, by their own leadership. Makes you wonder.
Israeli Judges Rule.
You do know that Israel has a substantial population of muslims Tel?
Israel would have to allow all its population to arm up if it were to relax gun laws.
As for the disgraceful comments about Kibbutz residents being legitimate targets, just go away and never come back.
Labor can win these electorates so easily they have absolutely nothing to prove …
Labor got smashed in those Electorates on Saturday.
It wasn’t White racists who defeated the Referendun out there, it was Muslims.
Ironically, the greens would most likely be the first one pushed off a building were Australia to convert to Islamic law.
The issue is as to whether certain acts are justifiable acts of war, C.L. having pointed out that at times civilian deaths are justified. When. We have just tried to deal with charges agains Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. But as for the residents and their security personnel in Kibbutzes strategically surrounding Gaza – they were not likely to allow Hamas to progress past the Kibbutz posts. But in any case, Hamas were at war. What has not been asked or answered is whether Hamas had any just cause for attacking Israel, whether Israel holding political and military might had over the decades been acting justly in relation to Palestinians whom they had displaced and who in their turn, and perhaps in despair had shown proclivities to violent resistance. However, no one has yet shown that the Gazans had in fact no cause for resisting Israel, that all was well and just.
Many aspects of the Islamic ethos and world view are alien and disturbing to me and to many others, yet at the little-people level where I for one really don’t know what geopolitical manoeuvres are at play, what deals are being made and who is being sold out in the process and at what cost, the situation on the ground does not in justice permit that the Arab world, Muslim or Christian, is invoked in only demeaning and highly abusive subhuman terms. That is an old story.
In short, that Israelis were brutally murdered and that that country is suffering and grieving ought not be allowed to blindfold with regard to the sufferings of others, people whom we are inclined to dislike or fear.
Australia’s not converting to Islamic Law, so you’ve got nothing to worry about, Buccaneer.
The Greens are the wonder of the age, politically.
A significant part of their leadership, here, in the U.K. and the U.S. is Jewish, yet they’re on the side of the Palestinians.
Health conscious white people vote for them, yet they demand Compulsory Fluoridation of Water Supplies, plus Compulsory Vaccination of everyone.
Environmentalists vote for them, yet they reject Organic & Biodynamic Farming as “elitist”.
Herbicide, pesticide, fungicide runoff from farms into wareways?
Crickets from The Greens.
Population increase outstripping Water Resources?
Well, Greens Policy [on their website] up to 2009 was that Australia has a Sustainable Population of 12 million.
That’s disappeared into the ether, now they don’t have a Population policy.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Basically, the Labor Party is prepared to dump a Seat to The Greens to prevent it going to the Liberals.
That’s what’s happened in Brisbane & Griffith.
The Rank & File don’t like it, but Useful Idiots gonna Useful Idiot anyway.
The Liberal Party help the process by not understanding the psychology of the mean Green Voter, which is basically Reactionary.
You do know that Israel has a substantial population of muslims Tel?
Israel would have to allow all its population to arm up if it were to relax gun laws.
There’s plenty of Druze and Bedouins in the IDF.
They’re Muslims, they’re armed, they’re loyal to Israel.
Along with the “Queers For a Free Palestine.”
A spiteful and self defeating strategy … any law abiding citizen should deserve the right of self defence, regardless of whether they are in a minority religious group.
Kind or rude to make stuff up in order to smear people … nothing I said was even remotely implying it is legitimate to target any civillian. You invented that.
The fact remains that disarmed people are EASY targets and sooner or later someone will take advantage of that. I didn’t ask for it to be that way, I’m the one struggling to get you thinking a little bit about cause and effect.
Tel, I think it was not made clear but I don’t think that it was you who was accused of being something like callous or uncaring about Kibbutzniks having been attacked.
I think you remain in high esteem.
(Funny thing, though, it seems not everyone understood that it was C.L. who posited that civilian deaths were justified on bases of proportionality and of the necessity to ‘neutralise … threats’. From this, what remains in question is: a judgement about necessity; and also: judgement about who, precisely, is allowed to be seen as being in a state of necessity without allowing judgement to be affected by false beliefs that some people are if not less than human then at least of lesser sensibilities and less sensitive to suffering than certain others.)
All the Kibbutzes are close to the borders, they don’t function as model Farms anymore if that was ever the purpose.
Bernie Sanders spent time on a Kibbutz in 1971. He was booted for being a lazy bludger.
Longtime Health Minister and Fulbright Scholar Greg Hunt also spent time on a Kibbutz [Wiki]. Not sure about his perceived work ethic.
My comment re kibbutz residents wasn’t directed at you tel.
I don’t think the Israeli government was being spiteful given the number of attacks perpetrated internally.
In any case residents near the borders had armed defence units,unfortunately with some exceptions they were caught unprepared.