Last week I said here: “Israel’s attack on Gaza is a mistake, primarily because it is unlikely to work and because it will allow millions of people to loathe Israel again.” They cannot do that right now. As long as the memory of Hamas murderers entering peaceful villages and slaughtering unarmed civilians and even babies remains in the public memory, Israel will have the support of millions and most of its opponents will keep their voices quiet.”
I didn’t know how quickly my prediction would come true. As soon as Israel began bombing Gaza, the extremely cynical global anti-Israel propaganda machine smoothly moved into action. And Israel went from victim to villain in a matter of hours. The Hamas murders are already being forgotten. But maybe something can still be saved. If the retaliation against Gaza cannot be reversed, perhaps it can be reversed and stopped. But is there real statesmanship or political courage in Israel?
TERROR IN THE DESERT: Young Israelis flee during an attack by Hamas assassins on a music festival two weeks ago
This image taken from the southern Israeli city of Sderot shows a cloud of smoke erupting during the Israeli bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip on October 19, 2023
Palestinians run for cover as tear gas canisters fall during clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Nablus, October 13, 2023
Hamas said Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie were released for “humanitarian reasons,” raising hopes that more of the 200 people kidnapped in its raid on southern Israel two weeks ago would follow suit
I myself do not agree with the simple, fashionable condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is an unusually intelligent and experienced man, one of the few major figures in world politics to have actually been wounded in battle. This is perhaps the most profound form of experience possible, in a world where most Western leaders have never experienced anything more difficult than a university interview or final exam.
He must know that he doesn’t have much time left at the top of Israel’s political dunghill. So why doesn’t he cap his long career with a gesture that astonishes the world?
Why not say, “We’ve seen enough blood.” There’s no point in dumping more of it. In fact, we are sure that is exactly what our enemies want. We will stop bombing Gaza and abandon attempts at a ground invasion that will actually bring only suffering, much of it to innocent people. Most will understand our national anger at what was done to us and our initial desire to fight back. But our measured response to the Hamas killings is to address the world – and remind everyone in it exactly what Israel’s enemies did on October 7th.
“These killings and kidnappings were not, as their defenders claim, responses to oppression or abuse.” They were vengeful acts of racist hatred. They were driven by a high-octane version of a much broader anti-Jewish phobia that is still all too common in the world. It was this phobia that led to the desperate measure of creating a national home for the world’s Jews, a place of last refuge for those fleeing mass murder.
The aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militants on the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev Desert of southern Israel, pictured Oct. 8
On October 21, 2023, a large rally in support of Gaza and the Palestinians will take place along Avenue Habib Bourguiba on the way to the French Embassy in Tunis
An Israeli Army Merkava battle tank is deployed along with others at the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on October 13, 2023
“It is this shameful and bigoted phobia that stands in the way of general acceptance that Israel has as many freedoms of existence as any other state.” Look this hate in the face. Look what Hamas did on October 7th. Look at those who apologized or tried to apologize for it. And stop helping them. We, in turn, will not do these fanatics any favors by falling into the trap they tried to set for us. We will track down and punish known individual perpetrators. But we’re not interested in harming innocent people.’
Just try it. The bombs and rockets didn’t work. Maybe that will be the case.
Evil lurks behind drug lies
One of the most powerful lies you’ll ever hear is the repeated claim by marijuana fans that legalizing their poison would “keep it out of the hands of criminals.” When they first said it, it was just plain wrong. Obviously legal drugs would be taxed. And criminals would try to undercut legitimate sellers by avoiding this tax.
Now comes news from Canada about the failure of its five-year-old marijuana legalization program. Thousands of workers are laid off as ambitious new drug ventures fail. As anyone could have predicted, the criminal gangs, largely unhindered by the defeatist police, are able to undercut the legal providers on price because they pay no taxes. You can also ignore the pathetic attempts at “regulation” that legalizers always make.
As Professor Michael Armstrong of Brock University in Ontario puts it: “The big compromise with legal cannabis is how to make the legal market attractive enough to get all existing users to choose the legal weed but not .” “It’s attractive that you get a whole bunch of new users starting.”
Even the Canadian government, one of the most naive institutions in the world, estimates that four years after legalization, 33 percent of the trade was still in the hands of crooks. How can they be sure it isn’t much higher? You can’t.
Meanwhile, in California, another pioneer in the legal drug trade, the Los Angeles Times has uncovered serious corruption in the licensing of cannabis companies in the state.
Once upon a time, the claim that legalizing this harmful, life-destroying drug would keep it out of the hands of criminals was just poorly researched propaganda. Now it is a proven lie and you should keep this in mind every time you hear someone say something like that.
Evil always tries to advance behind a phalanx of lies, otherwise people would recognize it for what it is in time to defeat it.
Take your time with this absurd interference
This time next week, this country’s clocks will be allowed to show the correct time again, instead of foolishly fooling us into thinking we live by the Berlin Meridian. I – and many other early risers – no longer have to get up in the dark and the evening comes a little earlier.
Idiots will claim that the change has deprived them of light, even though the amount of daylight will remain exactly the same.
The shortening and lengthening of days is a natural process that would occur gradually and quite pleasantly if we did not engage in this pointless fiddling.
The evenings have been dragging on for weeks. On September 23rd, sunset in London was at 6:59 p.m. Tonight it is 5:53 p.m. Next Sunday, when the clocks return to their original position, sunset will be at 16:39 GMT.
Why don’t we just leave them there forever? Are we so poorly educated that we cannot see that this violent change of clocks twice a year has only one effect – it forces everyone to go to work and school an hour earlier than necessary while we are in Berlin ( or “summer”) time?
For what reason? What good is that?
We rightly want our food to be natural, organic, etc. So why are we okay with our time being distorted for months every year?